First, find your real limit

Go to WooCommerce > Settings > Status and look in the Server environment section. Two rows matter:

• PHP post max size
• Max upload size

Whichever is lower is your ceiling, no matter what any plugin says. If Max upload size reads 8 MB and your upload rule allows 50 MB, customers get 8 MB and usually an error that explains nothing.

This one check resolves most reports of "the upload is broken".

The four limits, in the order they bite

Two rules follow from this. post_max_size must be larger than upload_max_filesize, because the request carries the file plus everything else on the form. And if customers upload several files at once, post_max_size has to cover the combined total, not the largest single file.

Raising the PHP limits

On most managed hosting this is a setting in the control panel, or a support ticket. On a server you control, one of these:

php.ini

upload_max_filesize = 128M
post_max_size = 160M
memory_limit = 256M
max_execution_time = 300

.htaccess, on Apache with PHP as a module:

php_value upload_max_filesize 128M
php_value post_max_size 160M
php_value memory_limit 256M
php_value max_execution_time 300

If adding those to .htaccess produces a 500 error, your host runs PHP in a mode that does not accept them. Remove the lines and ask the host instead.

wp-config.php can raise memory but not the upload limits:

@ini_set( 'memory_limit', '256M' );

Plenty of guides suggest setting WP_MEMORY_LIMIT or upload_max_filesize here. Memory works. The upload values generally do not, because PHP has already read them before WordPress loads.

After changing anything, reload WooCommerce > Status and confirm the numbers actually moved. If they have not, the change did not take effect, and no amount of repeating it will help.

When it is the web server, not PHP

If the PHP values look right and uploads still fail, especially with a 413 error, the web server is rejecting the request first.

On Nginx, that is client_max_body_size, which defaults to 1 MB and is set in the server configuration rather than anywhere you can reach from WordPress. Your host has to change it. It is worth naming the directive when you ask, because it turns a vague ticket into a specific one.

Setting the plugin's own limit

In the upload rule, set Maximum Upload Size in KB, MB or GB, slightly below your server's real ceiling.

That gap matters. A plugin limit set below the server's produces an immediate, readable message before anything is uploaded. A plugin limit set above it produces a long wait and then a failure the customer cannot interpret, which turns into a support email or an abandoned order.

Large files that stall rather than fail

If an upload reaches 80 or 90 percent and then dies, size is probably not the problem. Likely causes:

• Execution time. max_execution_time too low for a slow connection. 300 seconds is a reasonable starting point.
• Memory. Image processing, such as generating previews, needs memory beyond the file size itself.
• A proxy or CDN timeout in front of your site, which has its own limits regardless of what the origin allows.
• The customer's upload speed. A 100 MB file on a typical home connection takes minutes, and a progress bar matters as much as the limit does.

How high should the limit be?

Set it from what your customers genuinely send, not from a round number.

Higher is not automatically better. A large ceiling invites uncompressed files that are slow to upload, slow to review and expensive to store, and if you accept only vector formats for a product, a tight limit is itself a quality filter.

FAQ