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Understanding and Fixing EWWW Image Optimizer Resize Detection

34 threads Sep 9, 2025 Plugin → Ewww image optimizer

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If you've noticed a strange blue dotted border appearing around images on your WordPress site, you're not alone. This is a common question from users of the EWWW Image Optimizer plugin. This article explains what this feature is, why it appears, and how to control it.

What is the Blue Dotted Border?

The blue dotted border is not a bug or an error. It is a feature of the EWWW Image Optimizer plugin called Resize Detection. This visual indicator is designed to help site administrators identify images that are being displayed at a size smaller than their original dimensions. This is important for performance, as serving overly large images that are then scaled down by the browser wastes bandwidth and slows down your site.

Why Do I See It?

According to the plugin's design, the Resize Detection border should only be visible to users with administrator-level privileges. This is to prevent confusing regular visitors or other users on your site. However, as noted in some user reports, there have been instances where this visibility control did not work as intended, and the border was visible to logged-in users who were not administrators. The EWWW Image Optimizer team has acknowledged this as a bug and has indicated a fix is planned for a future release.

How to Enable or Disable Resize Detection

You can easily control this feature from your WordPress dashboard:

  1. Navigate to Settings → EWWW Image Optimizer.
  2. Click on the Resize tab.
  3. Look for the option labeled Resize Detection.
  4. Check or uncheck the box to enable or disable the feature.
  5. Click Save Changes.

A Special Note on SVG Images

It's important to know that Resize Detection can sometimes give a false alarm for SVG images. Because SVGs are vector-based and can scale infinitely without losing quality, the concept of being "too small" doesn't apply. The plugin may still highlight them if they are rendered in an HTML <img> tag at a size smaller than their viewport. The EWWW Image Optimizer team is aware of this behavior and is investigating ways to skip size detection for SVG files.

Summary

The blue dotted border is a helpful troubleshooting tool, not a error. If you find it distracting, you can disable it in the plugin's Resize settings. If the border is visible to non-admin users, this is a known issue that is scheduled to be fixed in an upcoming update.

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