BE Media from Production Plugin

When spinning up a staging or local development environment, you might not need the full uploads directory, but you also don’t want to see broken images throughout the site.

This plugin lets you use the production server for missing media. Define the production URL using a wp-config.php constant BE_MEDIA_FROM_PRODUCTION_URL or filter be_media_from_production_url.

In all cases, if a local file exists, it will be used in preference to the remote file.

Once the plugin is installed, add the following constant to wp-config.php with your production URL.

define( 'BE_MEDIA_FROM_PRODUCTION_URL', 'https://www.billerickson.net' ); 

Alternatively, you can use the filter in a Code Snippets plugin or a mu-plugin:

add_filter( 'be_media_from_production_url', function() { return 'https://www.billerickson.net'; }); 

Installation via WP-CLI and constants

wp plugin install --activate be-media-from-production wp config set BE_MEDIA_FROM_PRODUCTION_URL https://www.billerickson.net --type=constant 

Using with WP Migrate

WP Migrate is my preferred tool for pushing/pulling databases between environments. The media files functionality allows you to transfer media between environments along with the database.

When redesigning a website, I keep all the media on my development server and push up new media uploads along with the database.

Set up a “push” profile to push your local database to the development server. Make sure “Media Files” is checked and select “Compare, then upload”.

Set up a “pull” profile to pull the development database locally. Do not include media in your pull. Any missing media will be handled by BE Media from Production.