How to Delete a File You Uploaded to Wikipedia

This article describes how MediaWiki handles and stores files, and gives some information on configuring.

This applies to images as well as to whatever other type of file that can be uploaded. All files are stored with a respective commodity in the "File:" namespace. Prior to MediaWiki 1.14, the "Image:" namespace was used instead. "Image:" is still retained as an alias for backward compatibility.

Upload and usage of images [edit]

Encounter Help:Images

Enable upload of images [edit]

To upload files, these weather condition accept to be met:

1. MediaWiki must have uploads enabled. Set $wgEnableUploads to true.
2. The file type must be immune. More information: $wgFileExtensions .
3. The user must be in a group with the "upload" correct. By default this is given to all logged-in users.

Uploads are done using Special:Upload.

Meet Transmission:Configuring file uploads , Transmission:Mime type detection and Manual:Adding support for new filetypes

Relevant parameters for file treatment [edit]

These parameters are relevant:

• Epitome configuration
• Path configuration
• Upload configuration

Prototype thumbnailing [edit]

MediaWiki's extended paradigm syntax allows images to exist automatically thumbnailed (see Transmission:Configuring file uploads for full general assistance on file uploads).

Image thumbnailing requires either ImageMagick or GD library – neither are part of the default MediaWiki installation, although some versions of PHP include GD. ImageMagick is recommended if better quality thumbnails are needed; it can exist downloaded from imagemagick.org. GD is included in some versions of PHP, and it is recommended to use GD on Windows systems. A standalone download of GD is bachelor from LibGD GitHub. In newer versions this is non required.

If yous use ImageMagick, set $wgUseImageMagick to truthful in LocalSettings.php. Make certain the $wgImageMagickConvertCommand variable points to the (absolute) location of the convert command of your installation and that the command is executable by the web server process. For example, Windows users will want to alter the default to "C:\ImageMagick\convert.exe" (or similar).

To re-create old thumbnail files before you used ImageMagick you tin use $wgThumbnailEpoch .

If rendering fails silently, check and increase $wgMaxShellMemory .

GraphicsMagick can besides be used as an alternative to ImageMagick. Yous will need to set up $wgCustomConvertCommand to the post-obit. East.g.:

                        $wgUseImageMagick            =            fake            ;            $wgCustomConvertCommand            =            "gm convert %due south -resize %wx%h %d"            ;          

GIF [edit]

For thumbnailing GIF-Animations under windows, you need to install ImageMagick as described above.

SVG [edit]

Wikimania 2016 presentation on Dynamic SVG

MediaWiki supports SVG prototype rendering: if enabled, SVG images tin be used similar other image files — they will automatically exist rendered as a PNG file and thumbnailed as needed on the fly. If you're on a shared host and no SVG renderer is pre-installed, you should probably ask your provider to install it for you.

To enable SVG support:

1. Allow upload of SVG files in the LocalSettings.php file: $wgFileExtensions [] = 'svg'; Note that MediaWiki will refuse SVG files containing JavaScript, for security reasons.

   To avoid a imitation positive, add $wgAllowTitlesInSVG = true; to the LocalSettings.php file.

   If you are using MediaWiki 1.34 or higher, $wgAllowTitlesInSVG is never applied and now always true. You can safely remove this in your LocalSettings.php file.

   If you get an fault maxim the file is decadent, make sure mime type detection is working properly.

2. Add $wgSVGConverter to LocalSettings.php and set the renderer you lot want to utilize.

   Available options are ImageMagick, ImagickExt, sodipodi, inkscape, batik, rsvg, and imgserv.

   For example: $wgSVGConverter = 'ImageMagick' ;

   • If the converter plan is non in the system path, you accept to specify the directory that contains the plan using $wgSVGConverterPath ..

   • librsvg is fast but not very authentic. It depends on a large number of libraries. To automatically install all these libraries, you may want to use a package director. The Wikimedia projects use rsvg.
   • Batik is the about authentic SVG renderer available, although its anti-aliasing is sometimes suboptimal. Its SVG parsing is more than strict, causing it to reject "most valid" SVG files that other renderers accept (e.g. commons:File:UbuntuCoF.svg). Batik relies on Java, and is much slower than rsvg, though this may not be a huge issue unless yous're constantly adding SVG files. Run across SVG benchmarks. Requires a lot of work to get running, if non included in your distribution.
   • Inkscape also does an accurate task of SVGs, half the speed of rsvg, but was designed for interactive graphical apply; however, it comes with inkview which is a viewer/converter program – it requires a writable home directory for the user it's run as. Since it will exist running as user www or something like, it will try to create .inkscape/ and .gnome2/ directories in the respective domicile directory, and will fail silently, crash or hang indefinitely if it is not able to. Inkscape is preferable to rsvg (a) on Windows (it comes as a standalone package) or (b) if you have of import SVGs drawn in Inkscape that do not render correctly in rsvg. Inkscape has every bit complicated a dependency chain as librsvg — utilize only if it's in your distribution or bachelor as a consummate standalone package.
   • Sodipodi is the program Inkscape was forked from. The same considerations apply. Sodipod is no longer under agile evolution.
   • Since version 6.ten.x ImageMagick renders SVGs, but imperfectly. This is the default, but avoid information technology if possible. Withal, information technology does work. On Windows, $wgConvertPath must be set to avoid a conflict with Windows' ain convert.exe. Ane uncomplicated alternative in this scenario is to add to LocalSettings.php the line $wgSVGConverters [ 'ImageMagick' ] = '"' . $wgImageMagickConvertCommand . '" -background white -thumbnail $widthx$height^! $input PNG:$output' ; , which besides allows for spaces in the path.
     • To prevent thumbnail creation errors with ImageMagick, if information technology's ≥ 7.0.9-25, then Inkscape must as well be ≥ ane.10.10. As well, if ImageMagick is < seven.0.9-25, and so Inkscape must also be < 1.ten.x. See ImageMagick issue.
   • The PHP Imagick extension supports SVG rendering, however the aforementioned considerations as for the regular ImageMagick apply.
   • The GD library is non capable of converting SVG images to the PNG format, at least co-ordinate to Joen Asmussen'southward June 2008 NoScope blog.
   • Nigh current spider web browsers except Cyberspace Explorer (until version 9) can brandish SVGs straight. Using librsvg to render SVGs to a PNG volition requite much more accurate results, as well as less bandwidth consumption. Directly SVG brandish is not supported in MediaWiki by default (task T5593), unless you install NativeSvgHandler extension.

Fix $wgSVGConverter = false if SVG rendering is not needed and y'all wish to brand your users download the svg file in lodge to view it.

Troubleshooting [edit]

If yous see a blank square instead of SVG (Chrome) or no prototype at all (Firefox) and all PNG links lead to 404 error and you don't see any other error message anywhere delight check $wgGenerateThumbnailOnParse variable. Setting information technology to false may make SVG transformation deferred always. Make sure that proc_open and symlink PHP methods are enabled (they may be disabled in php.ini for security or functioning reasons).

JPEG (using GD) [edit]

Simply add the following line to LocalSettings.php, this will crusade motorcar fall dorsum to GD library.

                        $wgUseImageMagick            =            simulated            ;          

For errors with JPEG thumbnails, meet JPEG (using GD).

TIFF [edit]

Generating thumbnails of TIFF files requires MediaWiki 1.15.0 or newer.

1. Permit upload of TIFF files in the LocalSettings.php file: $wgFileExtensions [] = 'tif';
2. Add $wgTiffThumbnailType to LocalSettings.php and set to either jpg or png to specify which blazon of thumbnail you wish to accept generated.
3. Making thumbnails of TIFF files may require organization resource beyond those needed for thumbnailing JPEG, GIF, or PNG files. Consider appropriate settings for $wgMaxImageArea and $wgMaxShellMemory

DjVu [edit]

Deletion of images [edit]

Files, like wiki pages, can only be deleted past users with the "Delete pages (delete)" permission (administrators by default). Deletion of files is done by deleting the associated description page (or by clicking the "delete all" link in the "File history" tabular array).

Deletion of individual revisions [edit]

If a file has been altered, there is a revision history of the files which is displayed on the file article folio. Each revision has a "delete" link. If this is clicked, the revision and the file are deleted.

The versions of files are separate from the folio history of the file clarification page.

Information well-nigh former revisions of files are stored in the oldimage table while information on erstwhile revisions of the pages are stored in the revision table.

Undeleting files [edit]

Files can exist undeleted in exactly the same way as normal wiki pages. The directory in which deleted files are stored is defined by Manual:$wgDeletedDirectory . Information well-nigh deleted images are stored in the filearchive table.

Deletion of Archived Files [edit]

Since MediaWiki version one.11, deleted images are still stored on the server by default. If y'all want to delete selected archived images, you can do and then using the eraseArchivedFile.php maintenance script. If yous want to delete all of them completely, you lot tin can do that with the deleteArchivedFiles.php script. If you delete archived files, you can not undelete those files anymore.

Reasons for Deleting a File [edit]

When choosing to delete a file, as described above, users volition be asked to provide a reason for deletion. The available reasons tin be edited on the MediaWiki:Filedelete-reason-dropdown of your wiki.

Data storage [edit]

Whenever an prototype is uploaded, several things are created:

1. An article in the file namespace with the name of the file, e.g. File:MyPicture.png. This page is stored and can exist edited like any other page.
2. The file itself is stored in a folder on the file system with whitespaces merged and replaced with _.
3. If necessary and thumbnailing is available, thumbnailed versions of the file will be created when necessary (such every bit for the usage on the file description page). These are stored in the pollex directory of the epitome directory, in a split directory for each master file.

If $wgHashedUploadDirectory is enabled (by default), MediaWiki creates several subdirectories in the images directory.

The directory names are from the first two characters of the md5 hash of the final filename.

Folders [edit]

All image files are stored in a folder adamant by $wgUploadPath (images/, by default).

Description of named epitome subfolders:

annal

This is the storage place for files that have been replaced past newer versions.

temp

used for temporary storage of files during prototype uploading. (Due to task T11018, these files may not always be automatically deleted)

thumb

Thumbnails (automatically generated) for the files. If these are deleted, they are automatically regenerated when needed.

Depending on the configuration, there may be additional image subfolders:

math

Folder to shop your rendered TeX input, come across likewise Extension:Math or Manual:Math.

x/xy

If $wgHashedUploadDirectory is ready to truthful (which is the default), images will exist stored in subfolders of the images, thus making file paths look similar images/a/ab/filename.jpg. See Manual:$wgHashedUploadDirectory for more than details on why this might be desired and how this arrangement works.

Database tables [edit]

• The file description page is stored every bit any page in the page, text, revision etc. tables
• image - Holds some metadata such as the size of the file and the upload date.
• oldimage - This stores information for files that have been replaced with newer versions.
• filearchive - holds the information on the deleted files.
• imagelinks - Records what pages use a file.

Space usage [edit]

Files need considerably more space than manufactures. The following calculations presume a block size of 4KB with Linux/Unix servers.

The default setting is $wgHashedUploadDirectory = true .

Space requirements for all directories:

• image directories: 0-f/x0-f: max. 16*xvi = 256 directories = 256*4 KB = 1024 KB
• annal directories: 0-f/x0-f: max. sixteen*16 = 256 directories = 256*4 KB = 1024 KB
• thumb directories: 0-f/x0-f: max. 16*16 = 256 directories = 256*4 KB = 1024 KB
• temp directories: 0-f/x0-f: max. 16*16 = 256 directories = 256*iv KB = 1024 KB

Therefore, the basic amount of space needed without any images uploaded is 4 MB in theory (although the directories are created simply when needed).

For each file we need:

• size of the original paradigm file + 2 KB average overhead

For files that need to be thumbnailed:

• size of the created thumbnail(southward) + 2 KB average overhead (each)
• directory for thumbnail (4KB) (each image has its own thumbnail directory)

Examples:

• image 20778 Byte png (pocket-sized size, no thumb): 24 KB for the image: Total 24 KB
• image 123.000 Byte jpeg (big size, car pollex): 124 KB for the image, 4 KB for the thumb directory, 64KB for the thumb: Total: 192 KB

File Access [edit]

Uploaded files are generally served directly by the spider web server, not through MediaWiki. While there may be a minimal level of security through obscurity with path encryption (e.g. /c/c4/...) if $wgHashedUploadDirectory is set, the path can be calculated hands from the file name and does not provide true protection.

For limiting access to authorized users, run into Transmission:Paradigm authorisation .

Upload form [edit]

See the documentation on configuring the upload form.

Licensing [edit]

A feature of MediaWiki allows the Special:Upload Page to streamline licensing of images. Wikipedia'south Upload Page has a Licensing drop down box below image summary. This feature is turned off in default MediaWiki. To turn this characteristic on a sysop needs to edit Licenses in the MediaWiki namespace (case: MediaWiki:Licenses). They can do this by going to the MediaWiki:Licenses page of their wiki and clicking 'create' or 'edit'.

The page MediaWiki:Licenses expects a certain format in a wiki listing.

*subst:license ane|license 2|License text
* Header 1:
** cc-by-sa-2.v|Attribution ShareAlike 2.v

Line i will produce "License text" and substitute the license ane template in the epitome page and transclude license 2.
Line two volition show a greyed out header with text "Header 1:"
Line iii will produce "Attribution ShareAlike 2.v" and transclude template cc-by-sa-2.five on the epitome page.

For detailed real world example, come across Wikipedia:MediaWiki:Licenses or Commons:MediaWiki:Licenses.

Foreign Repositories [edit]

It is possible to access files stored in foreign repositories, without needing to upload them to the wiki, by setting the $wgForeignFileRepos assortment. This characteristic offers several possibilities:

• ForeignAPIRepo accesses files from a remote MediaWiki installation, such as Wikimedia Commons, through its API
• ForeignDBRepo accesses files through a database, and is useful for creating wiki families
• FSRepo accesses files from a local folder

In all cases, ane would be able to embed files into a folio using ordinary image syntax and specifying the name of the file in the foreign repository. Note that some of the in a higher place implementations are still experimental, and might not be suitable for product sites.

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Source: https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Manual:Image_administration