Massive New Smush Feature: Smush *ANYTHING*

How do you make the best image compression plugin for WordPress even better? Hmmm, how about making it able to SMUSH ALL THE THINGS and in turn introduce total compatibility with not just every single gallery, slider or theme available for WordPress, but even non-WordPress related images?

Yep, that sounds pretty good :) Which is why the latest version of Smush Pro does exactly that.

Updated: 12/20/2018 – Smush Pro now includes WebP compression, automatic image scaling and 10GB of CDN storage on our 40 Tbps servers with 45 share points around the world.

Read on to see how it works and how I used it to improve my Google optimized image score from a 32/100 to a 93/100, giving me a 21 point gain on overall page load time.

So How Exactly Does Smushing Anything Work?

This part is really simple. Just scroll down to the bottom of your Smush admin page (Media > WP Smush) and you’ll see a brand new Directory Smush feature.

Now, it’s as simple as selecting the directories you’d like Smush to, erm, well Smush!

Of course, by far the easiest way to get Smush to sort out all of your theme, gallery and plugin files is to just select wp-content.

But you can literally select anywhere you like… We’ll even Smush your cPanel images if you really want us to.

And, of course, you can re-run Smush on as many directories as you like, so you don’t have to worry about being completely correct off the bat.

All while making sure that nothing goes wrong by excluding significant WP core files that you really shouldn’t be smushing.

You are then able to review all the directories, sub-directories and images that you are about to Smush and, of course, remove them if you wish.

Although all the usual Smush tools are available, so you can happily select to keep the original images alongside their new super compressed and speedy new cousins.

Personally, I just smush the lot of them as a rule, which is probably why nobody lets me near anything resembling business critical code these days ;)

And now you’ve set it up, just click Bulk Smush and you’re away. Smush will go about its business, just being its usual efficient and happy self!

But What About the Results?

Well, this is where things get seriously cool.

I’ve actually been waiting (and harassing people) for this Smush feature for aaaaages, largely because in The Hub I saw pretty much every day an annoying warning sign next to incsub.com that told me that it wasn’t performing well, mainly due to theme images outside of the usual Smushing range.

Well, complain no longer (or, at least, complain about something else like Gravatars not being properly cached, bah!) because Smush has sorted that out!

Now, this is the point where you make it clear that Incsub is, ahem, a company website and so should be a lot better in the first place, but the thing is it’s both astonishingly old and also, well, I’m kinda into eating my own dogfood.

So, for as long as I can remember (or at least since we conceived this feature, which feels like ages ago), our image score looked like this:

Whereas now it looks like this:

And perhaps most importantly of all, I was able to do it all by myself via Smush Pro and without consulting a single member of the (far more competent than me) people I work with!

So, why not give it a go yourself. If you’re not a member already you can sign up for and use Smush Pro and it’s new directory smushing feature on as many sites as you like right now, entirely for free.

And if you are already a member, well we hope you enjoy this rather nifty addition to your membership as much as I have :)