How to redirect attachment pages in WordPress

Step by step

1. Check whether your site has attachment pages

Open Media → Library, click an image and look for a View attachment page link in the details panel. Click it. If a page loads showing the image inside your theme, attachment pages are on. If the browser goes straight to the file, they are already off.

2. Check whether Google indexed them

In Search Console, open Indexing → Pages and filter the indexed pages by URL for attachment_id, or look for URLs that end in image names under your posts. Note any that get clicks in the Performance report. Those are the ones worth redirecting somewhere specific.

3. Turn attachment pages off with WP-CLI

Run this from the site root:

wp option update wp_attachment_pages_enabled 0

Without WP-CLI, open /wp-admin/options.php while logged in as an administrator, find wp_attachment_pages_enabled, change the value to 0 and click Save Changes at the bottom. That screen lists every option, so change only this one.

4. Or redirect to the parent post with code

Sending a visitor to a bare image file is fine for bots, less so for people who clicked a search result. To send attachment pages to the post the file was uploaded to, and to the file only when there is no parent, add this to a child theme or snippets plugin:

add_action( 'template_redirect', function () {
    if ( ! is_attachment() ) {
        return;
    }
    $id     = get_queried_object_id();
    $parent = wp_get_post_parent_id( $id );
    $target = $parent ? get_permalink( $parent ) : wp_get_attachment_url( $id );
    wp_safe_redirect( $target, 301 );
    exit;
} );

5. Redirect the few that earn traffic

For individual attachment URLs with clicks or backlinks, a specific destination beats a generic one. Add a rule in Hydrogen SEO → Redirections: the attachment path as From URL, the most relevant post or gallery as To URL, and 301 - Permanent Redirect. See how to set up 301 redirects.

6. Stop linking to attachment pages

In the block editor, an Image block's link setting can point to the Attachment page. Older posts made in the classic editor often used "Link to: Attachment page" too. Change these links to the media file or to nothing. Search your content for attachment_id to find the query-string form.

7. Keep them out of your sitemap

Open Hydrogen SEO → Sitemap and check the Post Types card. If a media or attachment type is listed and switched on, switch it off and click Save Changes. Image files still reach Google through the image entries attached to each post, controlled by Include Images in Sitemap.

Check it worked

Request an old attachment URL and look at the response:

curl -sI "https://example.com/?attachment_id=123" | grep -iE "^(HTTP|location)"

You should see a redirect with a location header pointing at the file or parent post. Over the following weeks, the attachment URLs leave the indexed list in Search Console and appear under Page with redirect.

Common mistakes

• Redirecting every attachment to the homepage. Google treats that as a soft 404, and visitors lose the image they came for.
• Deleting the media files to get rid of the pages. That breaks the images in your posts.
• Noindexing attachments but leaving them linked from every gallery. Redirecting is cleaner, because the page stops existing for visitors too.