Trusted WordPress tutorials, when you need them most.
Beginner’s Guide to WordPress
WPB Cup
25 Million+
Websites using our plugins
16+
Years of WordPress experience
3000+
WordPress tutorials
by experts

How to Add Custom Links to Gallery Images in WordPress

Editorial Note: We earn a commission from partner links on WPBeginner. Commissions do not affect our editors' opinions or evaluations. Learn more about Editorial Process.

Do you want to add custom links to gallery images in WordPress?

Adding URLs to your galleries can help visitors learn more about the products, images, and photos featured in that gallery. This can get you more conversions and encourage visitors to engage with your content.

In this article, we will show you how to add custom links to gallery images in WordPress.

Add custom links to gallery images

The Gallery block allows you to show a collection of images in a nice layout. This is perfect for displaying your most popular WooCommerce products, features, photos in an online portfolio, and much more.

Sometimes, you may want to link a gallery image to a page, post, or even an external page. This allows visitors to learn more about the image or take action, such as buying the product featured in the image gallery.

This is a great way to keep visitors engaged and encourage conversions. You might even add affiliate links to your image gallery to make more money.

With that being said, let’s see how you can add custom links to gallery images in WordPress. Simply use the quick links below to jump straight to the method you want to use:

You can link to any page or post on your WordPress website using the row of buttons that appear above each image in the Gallery block. This is a quick and easy method that doesn’t require any extra WordPress plugins.

However, you can’t link to external pages using this method. This may be a problem if you want to add affiliate URLs or link to a page that isn’t part of your WordPress website.

For example, you might want to link to a contact form that’s hosted on another website or a product in your Amazon store.

There’s also no way to add the URL to the image in your WordPress media library, so you’ll need to add the link manually every time you want to use it. In this case, you may want to use the plugin mentioned in method 2 instead.

To go ahead and add custom links using the built-in WordPress tools, simply create a new post or page or edit an existing one where you want to create the gallery. Then click on the ‘+ Add Block’ button.

In the popup, type in ‘Gallery’ and then select the right block when it appears.

How to add a gallery in WordPress

This adds a Gallery block to your layout.

Even if you want to upload new image files from your computer, click on ‘Media Library.’

Adding images to a gallery in WordPress

If you want to upload some new images, then select ‘Upload files’ and then add the images you want to use.

Once the images are in your media library, select the ‘Media Library’ tab. Then, just click on each image that you want to add to the gallery.

When you are happy with your selection, simply click on ‘Create a new gallery.’

Creating a new gallery in the WordPress dashboard

On the next screen, you can add any image captions that you want to use.

With that done, click on ‘Insert Gallery.’

Adding captions to an image gallery in WordPress

Now, just click on the image where you want to add the link.

In the toolbar that appears, click on the ‘Insert link’ button.

Adding links to a product gallery on an online store

You can now type the name of the page or post that you want to use.

When the right link shows up, give it a click.

Adding URLs to a product or image gallery in WordPress

By default, the link will open in the same browser tab. If you want to open the link in a new tab instead, then click on the small downwards-pointing arrow.

Then, click to enable the ‘Open in new tab‘ slider.

Opening URLs in a new tab in a product, image, or photo gallery

Now, you can add custom links to any image in the gallery simply by following the same process described above.

When you’re happy with how the gallery is set up, either click on ‘Publish’ or ‘Update’ to make it live.

Publishing a WordPress gallery with links

Now, if you visit your WordPress website, you’ll see the new gallery in action.

Method 2: Using Gallery Custom Links (Best For Re-Using Images)

If you want to link to an external page or website, then you can use the Gallery Custom Links plugin.

This free plugin adds a new section to the WordPress media library, so you can add the link to the image itself rather than insert it into the Gutenberg block editor.

This is particularly useful if you plan to use the same image and link in multiple places across your website, as you won’t need to add the URL manually each time.

The first thing you need to do is install and activate the Gallery Custom Links plugin. For more details, see our step-by-step guide on how to install a WordPress plugin.

This plugin works out of the box, so there are no settings to configure. Simply go to the page or post where you want to create the gallery and then click on the ‘+’ button.

In the popup, type in ‘Gallery’ and then select the right block when it appears.

How to add a gallery in WordPress

You can now click on the ‘Media Library’ button.

Here, you can either upload files from your computer or select any image from the WordPress media library. No matter what option you choose, in the right-hand menu, you’ll see some new ‘Link URL’ settings.

Adding custom links to gallery images in WordPress

Here, you can type in the URL you want to link to. You can also choose whether the link will open in a new tab or the current tab using the ‘Link Target’ dropdown.

Simply repeat these steps for every image that you want to show in the gallery on your WordPress blog.

When you are happy with how the gallery is set up, click on ‘Create a new gallery.’

How to add links to images in a WordPress gallery

You can then go ahead and click on ‘Update’ or ‘Publish’ to make the gallery live. Now, simply click on any image in the gallery to go to the linked page or post.

Perhaps you want to create a gallery with a gallery plugin because you are not satisfied with the built-in options WordPress has offered. But you want to make sure you can add custom links to the images you add.

If that sounds like you, then you will want to use Envira Gallery.

Envira Gallery is the best WordPress gallery plugin on the market. Besides offering multiple gallery layouts, it also has a handy lazy loading feature to prevent your gallery from slowing down your website.

Note: For this tutorial, we will use the premium version of Envira Gallery as it offers many advanced features like right-click protection and photo albums. But this guide will also work with the free Envira plugin.

First things first, you have to install the WordPress plugin and activate it. After that, click ‘Add New.’

Then, give your new gallery a title so that you can easily identify it later. Once done, just click ‘Select Files from Other Sources.’

Creating a new Envira Gallery

Here, you can just add your images to WordPress like usual or choose existing ones from the media file library.

You can also hit the ‘Ctrl’ for Windows or ‘Command’ for macOS key on your keyboard to select multiple images at once. Feel free to edit the image size and alignment as well.

Then, click ‘Insert into Gallery.’

Selecting images to add in Envira Gallery

To start adding custom links to your gallery images, scroll down the page to the ‘Gallery’ tab.

Then, click the pencil ‘Edit’ button for one of the image thumbnails.

Clicking the pencil edit button to customize an image in an Envira Gallery

Now, a new window will appear.

In the ‘URL’ field, you need to replace the media file link with your custom URL. You can also tick the ‘Open URL in New Window’ checkbox to have the image links open in a new browser window or tab.

Once done, just click ‘Save Metadata.’

Adding a custom link to an image in Envira Gallery

That’s it. You can now just repeat the same steps to add custom hyperlinks for each individual image.

Once you are done adding the links and configuring the gallery settings, you can click ‘Save Draft’ to save the gallery or ‘Publish’ to make it publicly accessible.

Saving a gallery in Envira Gallery

If you need help with creating image galleries, check out these WordPress tutorials:

Having problems with your WordPress images? For troubleshooting tips, please see our guide on how to fix common image issues.

We hope this article helped you add custom links to gallery images in WordPress. You might also want to see our ultimate guide to image SEO see our expert picks for the best drag-and-drop WordPress page builders.

If you liked this article, then please subscribe to our YouTube Channel for WordPress video tutorials. You can also find us on Twitter and Facebook.

Disclosure: Our content is reader-supported. This means if you click on some of our links, then we may earn a commission. See how WPBeginner is funded, why it matters, and how you can support us. Here's our editorial process.

Editorial Staff

Editorial Staff at WPBeginner is a team of WordPress experts led by Syed Balkhi with over 16 years of experience in WordPress, Web Hosting, eCommerce, SEO, and Marketing. Started in 2009, WPBeginner is now the largest free WordPress resource site in the industry and is often referred to as the Wikipedia for WordPress.

The Ultimate WordPress Toolkit

Get FREE access to our toolkit - a collection of WordPress related products and resources that every professional should have!

Reader Interactions

53 CommentsLeave a Reply

  1. Syed Balkhi says

    Hey WPBeginner readers,
    Did you know you can win exciting prizes by commenting on WPBeginner?
    Every month, our top blog commenters will win HUGE rewards, including premium WordPress plugin licenses and cash prizes.
    You can get more details about the contest from here.
    Start sharing your thoughts below to stand a chance to win!

  2. Daniel says

    This post is really helpful. It just helped me beyond my thoughts, I even think that it’s impossible to do this and no one has a post about this. Thanks very much

  3. Olaf says

    I came across this tutorial. It seems that the recomended plug-in “WP Gallery Custom Links ” is deactivated since Jan 2019. I found a working replacement for that: “Gallery Custom Links” (without “WP” in the name) that works in my WP 5.0 installation

    • WPBeginner Support says

      Thank you for letting us know about this plugin as we look into updating this article :)

      Admin

  4. Miranda says

    Can someone explain how to get Gallery Custom Links to work? I installed and activated it but when I went to my gallery I didn’t have any custom link meta fields out of the box like the one in the example.

    • WPBeginner Support says

      You would want to go to the plugin’s page and post on their support forum and the plugin’s support should be able to assist you :)

      Admin

  5. James Hay says

    I love WP beginner and find it very useful. However, it seems your solution to literally everything is to install a plugin. If I was to follow your advice, I’d have about a million plugins by now to achieve simple tasks. It’s actually frustrating, every articles solution is to install a plugin.

  6. Yarina says

    Hi, just a quick update on users looking to install the plugin mentioned here: it looks like it is not up-to-date with the latest versions of WP, according to recent reviews on the plugin page “WP Gallery Custom Links” :S

  7. J Brinker says

    Thank you so much for this! I had been looking at installing all sorts of new galleries and none of them were what I was looking for. This was the perfect solution.

    Now I’d be interested if it would also work with a carousel gallery, so they can get a closeup of the image and then click on that to a link.

    Either way your plugin is awesome and much appreciated!!!

  8. Jordy Meow says

    This plugin is not being updated, and the author doesn’t seem keen to do anything about it, not to help its users. The plugin only works with the standard gallery, doesn’t work with any other even the new Gallery Block brought by WordPress 5.0.

    I proposed to help but was ignored. I developed my own, which worked with most galleries, and much cleaner/faster than this one. Please have a look: Gallery Custom Links and if any issue, let me know. I will make it work :)

  9. Ana says

    Hi! thank you for your post. I installed it and can’t get any of the images in my gallery to be clickable. I’ve been playing around with it and trying different options but no luck. Some help please? :)

  10. Mark says

    Thanks for this article. I wasted so much time looking at all of these carousel plugins that did so many complex, Java-driven things when all I wanted was the functionality this one gives you.

  11. Gina says

    I really like the WP Gallery Custom Links but I want to take off the part of COMMENTS. I just want a link of my photos and the explanation …nothing more. How can I take off the COMMENTS PART?

  12. Ed McCarthy says

    Do you have any idea just how much time and energy and effort you saved me? I should have looked here first, but hey, I found just what I needed. By the way, this is working just fine with the WP Image Gallery. Also, support for this plugin is being maintained now by “johnogg” and seems like he’s doing a top notch job! Thank you so very much for this tutorial/post. You guys are awesome! Ed McCarthy

  13. Steve says

    Does this plugin still work?
    I installed it and can’t get any of the images in my gallery to be clickable. I’ve been playing around with it and trying different options but no luck. It would be a brilliant plugin if I could get it to work..

    Thanks!

    • Steve says

      Nevermind. I finally got it working when I switched the general setting to link to “media file”.
      Thanks!

      • Sarah Porter says

        Could you explain how you switched to “media file” because I do not see this option. Currently my photos (when clicked) are just enlarging the photo itself, and the link seems almost nonexistent

  14. Mudasir says

    I want have uploaded an image in my site which ontain a link I want to made that link no follow but i click on the no follow button its says no hyperlink. What should I do

  15. Adrian says

    I had the same problem as ‘K’ (who posted on Jun 6, 2015 at 12:53 pm) – took a while to workout but you need the full address (including http:// ) to get external links to work correctly.

    Very helpful pluggin.

  16. K says

    When I type in the url I would like the image to link to everything works except the URL of the linked page just gets tagged to the end of MY pages URL and therefore gets a mistake message saying that the url doesnt exist (because it’s now two URLs stacked) Please help! Would love this to work!

  17. twifordmin says

    Will this enable me to post an image on Facebook so that when people click on the image it takes them to a post in WordPress?

  18. Ali Khan says

    Nice Info. How can we wrap text around the images without corners of the images protruding out of the text alignment ? Is it the width of the page or something to do with the style. ?

  19. Doreen Sargente says

    Are there any tutorials on how to use this plug in with the newest version of WP? I’ve been happily using it for nearly a year but since upgrading I haven’t been able to figure it out and can’t find much help on how to do it.

  20. aayush says

    Hi there i am using this plugin. can you tell me that how can i set all images size same whatever i want set the size of all the images of my gallery. here is my website

    please see all the images size. i want to keep all the images size same. can you help me with that if you can please reply. i would really appreciate your help. thanks

  21. Elisa says

    Great timing as I was just finally getting to wanting to add links to images in a client gallery.
    Thank you!

  22. Jill says

    Thanks for the info! Do you know if there’s any way to make the WP gallery links “nofollow”?

    • WPBeginner Support says

      This is not possible at this moment without editing the plugin itself, which we do not recommend. However if you feel comfortable creating your own plugins then you can fork the plugin and modify it to match your needs.

      Admin

Leave a Reply to Elisa Cancel reply

Thanks for choosing to leave a comment. Please keep in mind that all comments are moderated according to our comment policy, and your email address will NOT be published. Please Do NOT use keywords in the name field. Let's have a personal and meaningful conversation.

WPBeginner Assistant
How can I help you?

By chatting, you consent to this chat being stored according to our privacy policy and your email will be added to receive weekly WordPress tutorials from WPBeginner.