One of the most annoying things about Joomla! (in my opinion) is that the default images directory (or folder, whatever you want to call it) is yoursite.com/images/stories, and the default directory for the media manager is yoursite.com/images. That makes no sense to me. Read on to find out why this makes no sense, and how you can easily fix it.

Adding images to articles

One of the great new features in Joomla! 1.5 is the nice little "Images" button at the bottom of the text editor in the article manager. That button launches a pop-up in which you can easily locate the image you wish to use and add it to your article.

The only problem is, this nice little pop-up starts at the default images directory (yoursite.com/images/stories) and not the default media directory (yoursite.com/images). If your images are not in yoursite.com/images/stories or some sub directory of this folder, then you will not be able to get to it from the image locator.

The Solution

Fortunately, the core team in their infinite wisdom decided to make it possible for you to change which directory acts as the default images directory. Here's how.

First, you need to log in to yoursite.com/administrator and navigate to the global configuration manager either by clicking on the "Global Configuration" button in the main control panel or by clicking "Site->Global Configuration" in the administrator main menu.

The Global Configuration is divided into 3 main sections: Site, System, and Server. Click on "System" to view the System configuration and scroll down to media settings, which you can see in the following screen shot.

Change "Path to Image Folder" to your desired location. This path should be relative to the root of your site. So for example, if you wanted your images folder to be "monkeys" for some strange reason, then you would simply type "monkeys" in the box. I usually just change it to "images" to match the "Path to Media Folder" value, but you can set it to whatever you want it to be. Just make sure that the location you choose actually exists on your server.

Finally, click "Save" and you're all set. Now your default images directory is a location that actually makes sense for your site. That's all there is to it.

Questions

As always, please feel free to post any questions or comments about this.

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written by nc, September 27, 2008

When you change the default media dir, does it affect already embedded media in your website (this would make the suggested change very dangerous for production site) or is this value only used for adding new images ?

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written by Kirti, September 27, 2008

Wow.. This one is so simple and I spent so much time on Joomla Forums to find the answer!

I have one more question - I do not want any registered user to be able to use the images uploaded by other users or by backend admin/managers. Currently, all images uploaded on Joomla 1.5 are available to every other user. How can this be prevented?

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written by Cory, September 29, 2008

@nc... that's a good question. No, this will not affect already embedded media. It only affects adding new images.

@Kirti... This is not possible with any system. All of your images are directly available simply by typing the location of the image, regardless of the level of access you have to the site.

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written by shan, October 05, 2008

yeah a lot about Joomla doesn't make sense to me (my humble opiniooon).
Template driven. All Joomla (Wordpress too) sites look alike, whatever template you use...
Everything is constricted to boxes that are placed in certain places. It's horrifying.

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written by Cory, October 05, 2008

Hi Shan... I have to disagree with you on the template thing. Not all Joomla sites look alike. The template system in Joomla! 1.5 is flexible enough that you can set your site up to look however you want it to. You are only limited by your creativity.

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written by Duke, October 13, 2008

Great to find this. So, the next step, is it practical to move the 22 little icons found by default in the images folder to a subfolder so the folder is more manageable?

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written by Dave, October 19, 2008

Why in the world is the default path stories?

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written by mark weatherill, December 02, 2008

Hi Cory

I would like to add a link to an image in a content page, like for eg. .
When you add the image using the WYSIWYG editor and then click the add link icon, a popup appears asking for the Link URL.
The question is: how to reference the page you want the link to go to?
Cheers,
Mark Weatherill.
p.s. it may be an enhancement to your nicely organized website if you added the capability for logged in users to easily view all their posts.

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written by Cory Webb, December 02, 2008

Hi Mark... good question. The easiest way to do this is to navigate to the page you want to link to and copy the URL in the address bar. Other than that, I'm not sure if there is another automatic way to do this.

Thanks for the suggestion. I have big plans for this site in the somewhat near future. Stay tuned.

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written by Amin, December 10, 2008

Hi !
I have searched many websites to fine a answer to my question, but...
I am trying to change my buttons text ( Main Menu) ( Read more...). I couldnt find anywhere in the joomla menu manager. Can u plz help me with my qeution. For insdent I gonna change from english to persian langauge the text of the buttons..
Best regards

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written by Cory Webb, December 10, 2008

Hi Amin, you should be able to change the menu link text in the menu manager. I'm not sure why you would be having a problem with that. Also, if you need multiple languages, you should try using JoomFish.

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written by greg@afinspect.com, January 08, 2009

Hello,

Thanks for the article. I have a question regarding the image directory. I want to move some static content (images, javascript, and possibly css) to a subdomain. Is this possible using the steps in the how to listed in this article?

The reason I want to move static content to a subdomain is to eliminate some http requests. I've done a bit of research, and have read that moving static content to a subdomain will relieve a bottle neck in terms of simultaneous http requests from a single domain.

From what I have read, reducing the number of http requests is the best way to speed up page load time, and moving some http requests to a separate subdomain is the second best way to speed up page load time.

Thank you very much for any help or advice.

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written by Cory Webb, January 08, 2009

Hi Greg... This is technically possible, but it wouldn't quite work the way you want it to.

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Can set this thing in my template permanently.
written by jitendra, February 19, 2009

I need If i sell a template and user install my template then how images will show automatically from my template /images/.

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/stories/
written by vickie, March 05, 2009

/stories/ is a leftover convention from the Mambo split (Joomla roots so to speak.)

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replacing with swf file
written by Adewuyi O. Adeladan, May 12, 2009

Hi,..
I build animations using flash pretty good. However, i replaced the default joomla logo with my swf file in the CSS code and also placed the swf file in the relevant directory, saved and then checked the result - but the image position was blank on the page.

I again added "swf" into "Legal Image Extensions" in the global configuration, yet no difference. I made sure the swf animation had the same dimension with the default logo. Still nothing!

I can't figure out where i'm wrong here. I think i need your help. Thanx!

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Does not work for me???
written by jennifer, May 17, 2009

Hi Cory,
When I found this tip from you I was so excited as I hate the name 'stories' for this folder. But when I followed your instructions, it didn't work for me. When I went to insert an image or a document link, I still got 'stories' as my root folder. I even tried to rename stories but it magically reappeared as an empty folder! I'm using JCE and have looked in the configurations for that as well but to no avail. Any ideas?

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written by Cory, May 17, 2009

Hi Jennifer... the first thing I would do is make sure your configuration.php file is writeable. It may be that the change you made didn't get saved. If that's not it, I'm not sure what to tell you. It could be a JCE thing, but I don't know enough about JCE to tell you if that's the case.

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written by jennifer, May 17, 2009

Thanks Cory. Tested my config file and it is writable. Even so, I can't even see which lines in the config file are determining the root of the images folder.
Maybe it is JCE. I'll continue my search for an answer and let you know when I find it!
Cheers.

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written by jennifer, May 18, 2009

I found the fix in the JCE Forum:
http://www.joomlacontenteditor...ault-path
Hope this helps others in the future. Goodbye to 'stories'....
Thanks again for prompting me to even look into this from your post!

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written by jennifer, May 18, 2009

Not sure if that link worked in my last post:
http://www.joomlacontenteditor...fault-path

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written by Cory, May 18, 2009

Thanks Jennifer!

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Thank you!
written by Rocky, August 06, 2009

Having a lot of these images in a folder called stories made absolutely no sense...very strange they decided that should be a default directory. Thanks!

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User folder for images
written by Toni, October 24, 2009

@Kirti

It is possible. With some extensions (for example JCE editor), you can set the default path adding variable strings, something like "images/stories/$usertype/$username", so they only have acces to their own folder.

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