How to Increase the WordPress Upload Size Limit (Ubuntu, Apache, MPM Event)

To follow this guide, your WordPress is required to be installed on a VPS or a cloud server or a dedicated server with root privileges on SSH. This guide does not apply to WordPress sites that are using shared hosting (such users can use WordPress plugins which increases the limit).

LAMP server customization is complicated since not everything is documented clearly. It is common to try changing the value of the upload_max_filesize directive in some php.ini without any effective result. This article will address the two errors while trying to change the value.

Changing Value of Which php.ini File Will Work?

In the whole system, there are 3-4 php.ini files. Normally, we do not use PHP’s built-in server. Depending on the module in use, the settings of a specific php.ini file get honoured because the way of utilizing PHP becomes different. SSH to your server, and change the directory to /etc :

Run this command to view the path of the php.ini files which have the phrase “post_max_size”:

You’ll get an output like this:

When you are using mod_php and mpm prefork, then editing the /etc/php/7.2/apache2/php.ini should work.
When you are using php-fpm and MPM Event, then editing the /etc/php/7.2/fpm/php.ini should work.
For wider compatibility, you have to edit all the php.ini files.

What to Change?

You have to change the values of at least these three directives:

Where the value of memory_limit > max_post_size >= upload_max_filesize. For example, you can set the values 10MB, 8MB, 6MB or 8MB. For example:

Depending on your setup, run the appropriate commands to test and gracefully restart Apache:

Check WordPress for upload size. It should be fixed now.