Alt Text Auto Updater Plugin Documentation

Back up the site and confirm WordPress 6.8+ and PHP 8.0+. Free and Pro are separate plugins with one interface. Only Free belongs in the WordPress.org directory. Pro requires Free 2.0.0 or newer and a valid one-site licence for its paid features.

1. Take a current backup. Preserve your existing licence and provider credentials.
2. Deactivate the historical Auto Update Alt Text plugin before activating the new Free plugin. Do not run competing shared-runtime owners.
3. Install the final Alt Text Auto Updater Free ZIP, then activate it.
4. Install and activate Pro if purchased. Keep Free active.
5. Check Settings, existing history, Media Library alt text and your licence before starting a new run.

The new pair preserves shared settings, history and alt text. Legacy plaintext provider credentials migrate to encrypted storage and credential values are removed from history snapshots. Deactivation or uninstall does not erase shared data. Keep the old package and backup for diagnosis; do not reactivate it alongside the new Free runtime.

Open AI Alt Text → Settings and choose your own OpenAI or Gemini connection. Provider billing is separate from a ChatGPT subscription and the Pro licence. Read and accept the data-sharing explanation before sending images. PluginHub-hosted generation is currently restricted to administrator testing and requires account and public HTTPS site-control verification.

1. Open Optimise Images and choose the content scope.
2. Scan, then inspect eligible images and the generation estimate.
3. Confirm generation. Review every result, including skipped or unsupported rows.
4. Edit or skip wording as needed, then use Apply for the changes you approve.
5. Check the saved page and Media Library record.

A suggestion is a draft, not a guarantee of accuracy or accessibility compliance. Describe the image purpose in context; avoid forced keywords.

Media Library alt text affects every inheriting use of the attachment, including pages outside the scan. Explicit local wording, known decorative choices and unsupported dynamic fields are preserved. Rescan after native editor saves; undo preserves later edits and may be partial.

Tested cases include Gutenberg/classic content, galleries, featured and synced blocks; Divi 4/5, Beaver Builder Lite/Pro and explicit Themer references, Cornerstone/Pro, Elementor Free/Pro, Bricks, WPBakery, Kadence Blocks Free, GenerateBlocks Free and WooCommerce product/gallery/variation context. These are tested use cases, not universal builder coverage.

Conditional-template enumeration is unsupported for Elementor, Beaver, Bricks and Divi. Unknown ACF/Loopers, dynamic Query Loop results and plain-URL Cornerstone sources need manual review. Block-theme templates and filesystem templates are outside selectable scope. The Pro theme’s Woo variation thumbnail can retain stale alt text and is unsupported. Oxygen and Breakdance are untested.

Generation supports JPEG, PNG and WebP; AVIF requires working local conversion. GIF, BMP, TIFF and SVG generation is unsupported. Pro background work depends on WordPress scheduling/traffic; it does not guarantee execution on a low-traffic site. Background request caps do not cap separate manual generation.

Use Resume suggestions to retrieve a saved hosted result first. Retrieval does not charge another credit. Unknown provider outcomes are not automatically sent again; a new generation request needs a fresh estimate and confirmation. History & Undo restores plugin-written values only when they have not since changed, preserving later edits.

Generation sends the selected image and chosen context to the selected provider, directly for your own key or through PluginHub for hosted use. Image-only mode omits page text. Hosted images and context stay in request memory; saved result text is available for 30 days, then removed while accounting records remain. Provider retention is governed by its own policy. Provider keys are encrypted and are not included in ordinary history or plugin downloads.

Pro is a one-off US$59 purchase for one production website, with no subscription, automatic renewal or licence expiry. A deliberately paired, verified staging companion uses the production entitlement. Deactivating Pro on staging does not release production. Transfer production deliberately before activating elsewhere. Seven-day outage grace does not override a known invalid or transferred licence.

Pro updates are public and signed. Signed metadata expiry protects update freshness and does not expire your licence. Free is downloaded directly from PluginHub while WordPress.org submission is pending. It has no external updater; install newer Free ZIPs manually until an official directory release is available.

Hosted generation and credit purchases remain restricted to administrator pre-launch testing.

Credits belong to your PluginHub account and are shared by verified connected sites. Trial credits expire after 90 days; purchased credits and Pro introductory credits do not. One delivered new suggestion consumes one credit. Failed requests consume no customer credits, and retrieving a saved result adds no charge.

Refunds reverse the applicable grant once. If credits have already been spent, the reversal can create a shortfall that later grants offset. A full Pro refund makes that order’s Pro licence inactive; credit-only or partial Pro refunds preserve remaining entitlement. Read the current published refund policy for eligibility.

If Free is missing or incompatible, install the supported Free version before activating Pro. If the old combined plugin is active, deactivate it first. For a failed connection, inspect the connection status and provider account without sharing keys in support messages. For unsupported images or builder fields, use the native editor and retain the report. Do not repeatedly regenerate an uncertain hosted job.