My Media Library is getting cluttered and I would like to start deleting old images. Will doing so affect the posts into which I have inserted these images? Does inserting them into the post copy the images into a different folder? Can I safely delete the "original" from the Media Library?
No, you can't.
Deleting the media makes it disappear from every page/post you inserted it.
However, you CAN delete its unused variations.
Depends on which theme/plugin you're using, a media file will be automatically generated into different size versions.
Eg: Original media file
With this being said, if you wish to declutter your media library, you can delete its variations. This can be done once you ditch the old theme and switch to another one. And of course, please make sure you're not using that image variation in your page/post before deleting it.Deleting an image from the WordPress media library will remove the image from the website completely. It will no longer be available to any posts, pages or other content that referenced it.
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