How To Prevent Wordpress From Creating Thumbnail Images

A good thing is, you can turn the automatic thumbnail feature off and the step is very easy. No hacking/modification of code or plugins required. In your WordPress dashboard, go to Settings -> Media. Under the Images Sizes section, change all the value to zero.

Save the changes. That’s it. Now whenever you upload an image, you will see that the “Thumbnail”, “Medium” and “Large” options are greyed out under the Size section.

You won’t see anymore thumbnail images in your WordPress database from now on. Image credit: gwydionwilliams