WordPress Media from Google Cloud Storage – CDN

How to set up your WordPress to use Google Cloud Storage for your Media files

Today we are going to walk you through how to set up Google Cloud Storage for your WordPress uploads. The main reason to use this is to save disk space and use Cloud Storage as a CDN.

WordPress Google Cloud Storage Setup

For setting up WordPress to use Google Cloud storage for media library, we can use a free WP-Stateless plugin. This plugin has three modes

1. Backup – Upload media files to Cloud Storage and serve local media files.
2. CDN – Copy media files to Cloud Storage and serve from there.
3. Stateless – Media files are not stored locally. Upload and serve media directly from Cloud Storage.

Install WP-Stateless Plugin

Login to your WordPress Dashboard and navigate to Plugins >> Add new and search for wp-stateless. You will find a plugin developed by Usability Dynamics, Inc. Click on “Install now” and activate the plugin.

Setup the Plugin with GCS

You can either click on “Begin Setup Assistant” or you can follow manual setup.

Now we will do a manual setup. Manual setup includes 3 Steps

• Create Google Cloud Storage Bucket
• Create a Service Account and download JSON files
• Complete the Wp-Stateless setup

Create Google Cloud Storage Bucket

Go to your Google Cloud console and navigate to Storage >> Browser

Click Create Bucket

Enter Bucket Name

Choose Default storage class as Multi-Regional

Select Location which is nearest to you

Click Create

Once your bucket is created click on the bucket and click the Permissions tab

Click Add members button

In the Popup add allUsers in Members and in Roles select Storage Object Viewer

Click Add

Now your bucket is publically accessible to all users

Create a Service Account and download JSON file

To connect WordPress with Cloud Storage a service account is needed with sufficient permissions. Let’s create a service account

Go to IAM & Admin >> Service accounts

Click Create service account

In step 1

Enter Service account Name

Click Create

In step 2

Select Role Storage >> Storage Admin

Click Continue

In step 3

Click Create Key

Choose Key type as JSON

Click Create

Now a JSON key file will be downloaded. Open the file in a text editor.

Complete the WP-Stateless setup

Go to your WordPress Dashboard and navigate to Media >> Stateless settings

In General choose Stateless, File URL replacement to Enable, Enter supported file types or leave default

In Bucket enter your Bucket Name

In Bucket folder leave empty

In Service account JSON paste the contents of the you downloaded while creating the Service Account in Google Cloud Platform

In Cache-Control enter public, max-age=86400

In Delete GCS File select Enable

Check out the Preview field, this is the sample of your media URLs

Click Save Changes.

Let’s test the setup quickly

Upload a file through your Media Library and check the URL of your image. It will be in the format provided by the plugin in the Preview

Additionally, if you like to upload existing images to Google Cloud Storage(GCS). Go to Tools and sync your images with GCS. This will take some time according to your image count. Once the sync is completed you can see all images served from Google Storage.