How URLs are served

Offloft changes media addresses as each page is shown, so normal offloading doesn't change your database. Your posts keep their original local addresses. A verified file gets the cloud address, and anything else keeps the local one. Turning rewriting off returns your site to its local files at once.

What this means for you

• It's reversible. There's nothing to search and replace back.
• It's decided file by file. One unverified thumbnail doesn't affect the others. It simply loads from your server.
• Pages don't run an extra database query for each image.

Changed files get a new name

With Versioned file paths on, the default, Offloft adds a short version to each address. A changed file gets a new address, so no browser or CDN cache serves the old version. This applies to files offloaded from then on.

Caching plugins

If a page cache stored a page before you turned rewriting on or off, that stored page still has the old addresses. Clear your page cache after changing it.

When a theme saved a full address

A few themes and plugins save complete image addresses somewhere Offloft doesn't rewrite. If you find one, see replace URLs in old content. Most sites never need this.