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How to Easily Create Responsive WordPress Image Galleries with Envira

Creating an image gallery in WordPress can be frustrating if the built-in features don’t meet your needs. Many gallery plugins promise great results but are often hard to use and slow down your site.

Envira Gallery offers a simple solution. It lets you easily create stunning, responsive image galleries in WordPress.

In this article, we’ll show you how to set up and customize image galleries using Envira quickly.

How to easily create responsive WordPress image galleries with Envira

Why is Envira Gallery Better?

If you run a photography or portfolio site with a lot of photos, then you already know the troubles that come with creating an image gallery.

For instance, you might encounter issues with site speed, lack of organization, browser compatibility, device compatibility, and difficult setup.

Unlike other gallery plugins, Envira is extremely fast while still packed with features such as a responsive design, lightbox and slideshow functionality, drag-and-drop builder, templates, and video support.

It also has other add-ons, like protection, which helps you protect your images. On the other hand, the tags add-on helps you organize all your images, deep-link, fullscreen, and supersize.

Envira also easily integrates with other tools and platforms like Instagram, Dropbox, WooCommerce, and Pinterest.

With that in mind, let’s take a look at the process of creating an image gallery with Envira.

Adding a Responsive Image Gallery with Envira Gallery

Envira Gallery is the best image gallery plugin for WordPress on the market.

For this tutorial, we will use the Envira Gallery Pro version to unlock more features. However, you can also create image galleries using a free version of Envira Gallery.

Envira Gallery website

First, you’ll need to install and activate the Envira Gallery plugin. If you need help, then please see our guide on how to install a WordPress plugin.

Upon activation, you’ll need to go to Envira Gallery Settings and enter your license key, which can be found in your Envira Gallery account area.

Add the Envira Gallery license key

From here, simply enter the key and click the ‘Verify Key’ button.

To create a new gallery, you need to go to Envira Gallery » Add New from the WordPress dashboard.

Add new gallery

You can then enter a name for your gallery at the top and click the ‘Select Files from Your Computer’ button to upload images to it.

Envira Gallery also lets you choose images from other sources for your gallery. You can simply upload pictures to the WordPress media library and use them for the gallery.

Editing Image Gallery Settings in Envira Gallery

Once you have selected the images, you should be able to see the image thumbnails.

View images in the gallery

You can rearrange images by simply dragging and dropping them in the order you want to display.

If you click the pencil icon, then you’ll see more options. For instance, you can insert image metadata such as title and alt tag.

Envira Gallery allows you to add HTML to the image title and add a link to any page or website in the ‘Image Hyperlink’ field.

Add metadata to gallery images

Once you are satisfied with the metadata, you can click on the ‘Configuration’ tab to configure your image gallery settings.

You can choose how to display this particular gallery. For instance, there are different gallery layouts to choose from, and you can enable lazy loading and lazy loading delay.

Set up config settings

If you scroll down, then you’ll see more settings.

Envira Gallery lets you change the row height and margins, show image gallery descriptions, edit image dimensions and size, and more.

Additional config settings for gallery

Next, you can switch to the ‘Lightbox’ tab and configure the settings for the lightbox that displays the full images when they’re clicked.

There are options to select a theme, show a caption or title, image size, enable arrow display, hide or display the lightbox gallery toolbar, choose lightbox open and close effects, and more.

Lightbox settings for image gallery

Once done with your lightbox settings, you’ll want to scroll down to the bottom of the lightbox tab to the thumbnails section.

These thumbnails appear below the lightbox when a user clicks on an image. Clicking on a thumbnail image allows users to browse the gallery.

Adjust thumbnails settings

Envira Gallery also lets you change the settings of how your gallery will look on mobile.

Simply switch to the ‘Mobile’ tab and enable the option to create mobile responsive gallery images, edit mobile dimensions, adjust row height, enable title, and more.

Mobile gallery settings

Lastly, you can go to the ‘Misc’ tab to view additional settings for your image gallery.

For instance, there are options to change the gallery slug, enter custom CSS, import a gallery, and more.

Miscellaneous settings in Envira

You can also export the gallery and copy images.

Once you are satisfied with your gallery settings, go ahead and hit the ‘Publish’ button to make this gallery available.

Publish your image gallery

After publishing, you will see the shortcodes for inserting into a post, page, or widget to display your gallery.

For more information, see our guide on how to add shortcodes to WordPress.

Copy image gallery shortcodes

Adding a Gallery Directly in a Post or Page in WordPress

Now that you’ve created an image gallery using Envira Gallery, the next step is adding it to any blog post or landing page.

Once you are in the WordPress content editor, go ahead and click the ‘+’ button to add the Envira Gallery block.

Envira gallery block

After adding the block, you can choose your gallery by clicking on the dropdown menu in the Envira Gallery block.

You will then see a preview of your image gallery in the block editor. Once you’re happy with its appearance, simply publish your post or page. You can then visit your website to see a responsive image gallery in action.

Image gallery preview

Bonus Tips for Using Envira Gallery in WordPress

Envira Gallery also comes with premium add-ons that extend functionality and provide more features.

For instance, you can prevent image theft by disabling right-clicking on images using Envira Gallery. You can also use its watermarking add-on to add watermarks to images in the gallery.

You can also integrate Envira Gallery with WooCommerce to create stunning product image galleries. This allows you to show customized product images in different layouts.

It even lets you organize galleries using tags and create filterable portfolios. This is really useful if you have multiple galleries and want to make it easier for users to sort items they’re interested in.

Preview of a Filterable Portfolio Gallery

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We hope that this article helped you create responsive image galleries in WordPress with Envira. You may also want to see our guides on how to add multiple galleries in WordPress posts and pages and how to add a Flickr widget in WordPress.

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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.

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Reader Interactions

35 CommentsLeave a Reply

  1. Syed Balkhi

    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. Dennis Muthomi

    I’ve experimented with various gallery plugins, and Envira’s combination of speed and features is impressive.
    I particularly appreciate the detailed walkthrough of the configuration settings – the ability to customize lightbox effects and mobile responsiveness is crucial for creating a seamless user experience across devices.
    Thank you for this comprehensive guide on using Envira Gallery!

  3. THANKGOD JONATHAN

    Please how about embeded images. Can I use embeded images to create gallery with Envira plugin. If not how do I ensure the images does not affect my website speed. In cases where I have large number of galleries in a photography blog.

  4. Jiří Vaněk

    Just recently, I was creating a website for a kindergarten, and part of the website included an extensive gallery. I ended up using Elementor and found my way around it. However, the organization of photos isn’t very good. Thank you for the tip. If I’m doing a redesign of the website or creating another one with a large gallery, I will definitely give this plugin a try.

    • WPBeginner Support

      We hope you find it helpful :)

      Admin

  5. Ralph

    This looks really nice. I won’t use it as i don’t have almost any images for my blog (it is technical) but my wife blogs about furniture so this may find a good use!

    • WPBeginner Support

      We hope she finds it helpful :)

      Admin

  6. Moinuddin Waheed

    I have used many image plugins back in 2017 and due to heavy load time on my website I left most of them. I don’t know if installing all these plugins make the website somewhat slower or it is good to install and the code itself takes care of the speed of the website.
    The problem comes with the quality of the image. usually we get high quality images on our phones and when we upload those on our websites it get stuck due to its image size. if we crop do something we compromise with the image quality.
    I hope all these hurdles will be fixed by envira plugin.

    • WPBeginner Support

      We hope you find the plugin suits your needs :)

      Admin

  7. Sameer Hussain

    Now this is something that can come handy any day. Because images are a big part of your website and ultimately blogging success. Thanks for this.

    • WPBeginner Support

      You’re welcome!

      Admin

  8. R Taylor

    We have read this several times and watched the videos and still can’t figure out how to add caption and have it actually show when published. We have Pro but are screen is different, example when it says to “add gallery” (block beside “add media”) our version doens’t show it this way. We aren’t sure if that is where are issue starts or not.

    • WPBeginner Support

      Envira has likely updated their interface since this article was created so you could check with Envira’s support. More than likely there could be a styling issue where your theme does not show the caption for some reason.

      Admin

  9. Marilyn Pongracz

    An Envira tech person got back to me, and I had to disable Essential Grid to make it work in the Highend Theme.

  10. Marilyn Pongracz

    I tried a gallery and it was easy to create, but with some long and some short captions, it didn’t look very good. Lightbox didn’t work, either, even when I disabled my theme’s lightbox. Then I tried disabling Envira, and my theme’s lightbox won’t work.

  11. Kenny Lambert

    Envira is a piece of rubbish – would not work on my website and even though I have deleted the gallery and the plugin this [envira-gallery id=”91″] still shows on my homepage and I can’t get rid of it

    • WPBeginner Support

      Hi Kenny,

      Envira uses shortcodes to display galleries. You have to add these shortcodes to display galleries and you can remove them by simply editing the post and page and removing the shortcode. Hope this helps.

      Admin

  12. William

    thanks to Envira for the gallery option. Save a lot of time.

  13. Amber

    I love the Envira Plugin, but I can’t figure out how to have the gallery images link to the attachment page/post – it just links to the image, which is great if using lightbox (which I don’t want to do)…any ideas?

    • Editorial Staff

      The best way to get support for Envira Gallery is through their customer support system :)

      Admin

  14. Rohit Kumar

    I have been using theme “Being Hueman” on my blog but images are cut off. you can visit my blog and see yourself. I am not able to fix it and moreover, I have not seen any help on google so I have to write this comment to seek your help.

    Regards,

    Rohit Kumar

  15. WPBeginner Staff

    Shortcodes are not enabled by default for widgets. To enable shortcodes in widgets please add this code in your site’s functions.php file or a site-specific plugin.

    add_filter(‘widget_text’,’do_shortcode’);

  16. Mathias

    How can I insert the shortcode for the gallery into a widget in my sidebar? It did not work when I copied the short code into a text widget in my sidebar. thanks

  17. WPBeginner Staff

    Envira Gallery works on any standard compliant WordPress theme. It is not an eCommerce plugin itself, but it works with most popular eCommerce plugins and themes.

  18. Elise

    Hi! I’m creating a site for an art gallery. I would like to use the Envira plug in. Can you recommend a good theme to use or purchase that would go well with the Envira plug in? And at some point I would like to add ecommerce, does Envira support that or is that a theme issue?

  19. Roma Cantuaria

    Hello. I’m trying the Envira Lite right now. The design is perfect and the program is very easy to use. However, I’m facing two problems. Firstly, my photos are taking too long to load. Secondly, even after the page is completely loaded, a kind of loading icon under my gallery continues to appear. I’d like a little help from you guys.

    The link to my gallery: http://www.casasemparede.com/teste-7/

  20. Kaley Perkins

    Just bought the plugin but never saw a place to enter the code for the 20% off. Not a big deal for sure with all of the AMAZING value you provide, and QUITE possibly user error on my behalf being so eager to get it downloaded and working, but heads-up.

  21. Stephen Starr

    I’m testing Envira Lite, on a custom these. Not sure where this code belongs:

    You can also place this gallery into your template files by using the template tag(s) below:

    if ( function_exists( ‘envira_gallery’ ) ) { envira_gallery( ‘467’ ); }
    if ( function_exists( ‘envira_gallery’ ) ) { envira_gallery( ‘posada-life-in-picture’, ‘slug’ ); }

    Here’s my gallery that doesn’t have the lightbox function:
    http://posadalife.stephenbstarrdesign.info/posada-life-in-pictures/

    • WPBeginner Support

      Its working fine on our side, we can see your gallery and photos. Seems like you resolved the issue you were having.

      Admin

  22. Clare Chate

    Hey there, the two main features I’m currently looking for in a good gallery for my clients, is

    (1) Categories / Folders (that may be a given, excuse my ignorance! :-) )
    and
    (2) Social media sharing on images

    Does this one have those options?

    • WPBeginner Support

      It allows you to enable Tags using the tags addon. Using this feature you can allow users to sort gallery into tags. For the time being, there is no social sharing on the images.

      Admin

      • Clare

        Thankyou for the info!
        Clare

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