Image Protection

The plugin uses JavaScript to implement various techniques that prevent users from copying, saving, or taking screenshots of images on your site.

The plugin is designed to be lightweight and should not significantly impact your website’s performance. EXIF scanning only runs when you start it from Media > EXIF Privacy.

Go to Settings > Image Protection and choose a level:

• Relaxed: reacts only to confirmed screenshot shortcuts and to tab switching. Lowest chance of false positives.
• Balanced (recommended): adds pre-emptive shielding while screenshot modifier keys are held and blurs whenever the browser window loses focus (which happens when most screenshot tools open).
• Strict: the most aggressive heuristics, including blurring when focus is lost right after a modifier press and periodically clearing the clipboard. This catches the most attempts but can occasionally blur content during normal use.

On Windows and Linux, pressing PrintScreen copies the screen to the clipboard. When this option is enabled, the plugin overwrites the clipboard right after a PrintScreen press so the captured frame cannot be pasted. It is best-effort: it requires clipboard permissions and is not supported in every browser. With the Strict level, the clipboard is also cleared periodically while the tab is focused.

It can blur protected media during in-browser screen capture (the Screen Capture API used by browser tabs) when you enable “Block screen recording” in Settings. It cannot stop native operating-system or third-party screen recorders.

No. Mobile browsers do not expose any way to detect or block hardware-button screenshots or screen recording. On phones the plugin still applies deterrents: it blocks long-press “Save image”, dragging, and copying.

Yes, the Image Protection plugin is compatible with most WordPress themes. However, some themes may have custom scripts that could interfere.

Scanning for location and other privacy-sensitive image metadata requires the PHP EXIF extension (exif_read_data). Removing that metadata on upload or via the EXIF Privacy tool also requires a PHP image library: ImageMagick (imagick) is recommended for selective privacy cleanup; GD can be used as a fallback but may remove all embedded metadata from JPEG files. These features are optional and disabled by default — the rest of the plugin works without them.

Yes, you can disable protection for specific images in two ways:

1. Add the class no-image-protection to the image (or a parent wrapper such as <picture>):

   html
<img src="image.jpg" class="no-image-protection">

2. Add the data attribute data-image-protection="false" to the image or a parent wrapper:

   html
<img src="image.jpg" data-image-protection="false">

Yes, you can force protection on specific images or elements in two ways:

1. Add the class force-image-protection to the image:

   html
<img src="image.jpg" class="force-image-protection">

2. Add the data attribute data-image-protection="true":

   html
<img src="image.jpg" data-image-protection="true">

This will ensure the image or element is protected even if it would normally be excluded (like SVG images).

Yes. Go to Settings > Image Protection and enable “Apply blur protection to video elements”. This option is disabled by default so existing sites are unaffected after updating. You can also opt individual videos in or out using the same no-image-protection, force-image-protection, and data-image-protection attributes used for images.

Go to Settings > Image Protection to enable automatic privacy metadata removal on upload, or use Media > EXIF Privacy to scan your existing library and clean flagged images in batches. Test on a staging site first.

To uninstall, go to the Plugins page in your WordPress admin, find the Image Protection plugin, and click “Deactivate.” You can then delete it if desired.