A broken image means the browser asked for a file and did not get it. The image may well be sitting on the server even though it does not show, so before uploading everything again it is worth finding out where the request fails.
Right click the broken image and open it in a new tab. The answer narrows the cause down at once.
| What you get | What it means |
|---|---|
| 404 | There is no file at that address. The path is wrong or the file is missing. |
| 403 | The file is there but permissions prevent reading it. |
| The image opens normally | The fault is in the page referring to the image, not in the image. |
Look at the address the image points to. If it contains an old domain or an old server path, this is a migration that left old addresses in the database. The fix belongs in the database, not page by page. If the address is right but the file is missing, the images did not come along with the move. Then they are recovered from a backup, see our guide on backing up a site.
Check the permissions on the wp-content/uploads directory. A working baseline is 755 for directories and 644 for files. Permissions usually go wrong when files have been copied to the server with the wrong account. This is covered in our guide on 403 Forbidden.
Some servers block images from being loaded by other sites. If your own site fetches images from another address, for example an old subdomain, that protection can hit your own site. You notice it because the image opens directly but not inside the page.
Lazy loading and automatic conversion to a newer image format are common reasons why an image shows for some visitors and not others. Turn the plugin image features off for a moment and clear the cache. If the images return, enable the settings one at a time.
Then the media library thumbnails are missing while the originals are intact. Thumbnails can be regenerated, and it is a safe operation because the originals are not touched.
Do not upload every image again before you know whether the old ones are still there. Re-uploading creates duplicates and leaves the old references broken anyway.
We find out whether the images are still there and fix either the addresses or the permissions. If they really are gone, we recover them from a backup and tell you why they disappeared.
