14 Best Featured Image Plugins and Tutorials for WordPress

Featured images play an important role in most modern WordPress themes. While you can find beautiful royalty free images to use on your WordPress site as featured images, there is a lot more you can do with featured images. In this article, we will show you some of the best featured image plugins and tools for WordPress.
If you don’t like the video or need more instructions, then continue reading.
1. Soliloquy





Soliloquy is the best WordPress slider plugin on the market. It comes with a featured content add-on that allows you to easily add featured content slider to any WordPress theme.


It automatically gets the featured image from your article and uses it as the slide with your post’s title and excerpt. See our tutorial on how to add featured content slider in WordPress for step by step instructions.
2. Quick Featured Images





Quick Featured Images is a powerful WordPress plugin that lets you perform bulk editing actions on your featured images. You can replace, remove, or add featured images with bulk actions.


You can also set a default image to be used as featured image or instruct the plugin to automatically use the first image in a post as the featured image. Take a look at our tutorial on how to bulk edit featured images in WordPress for more detailed instructions.
3. Multiple Post Thumbnails





As the name suggests, this plugin allows you to add multiple featured images or post thumbnails in your WordPress posts. You will need to edit your theme files to display the secondary featured image.


See this tutorial on how to add multiple post thumbnails in WordPress for step by step instructions.
4. Require Featured Image





Many WordPress themes are designed in a way that your posts look strange without a featured image. Sometimes you or other authors on your site may forget to add featured image for a post.


This plugin simply stops authors on your site from publishing a post without a featured image. Take a look at how to require featured images for posts in WordPress for more instructions.
5. Featured Image Column





By default, WordPress does not tell you whether a post has featured image or not until you open the post in the post editor. This plugin simply adds a featured image column on your WordPress posts page.


It makes it easy for you to quickly see featured images set for posts. The plugin works for all post types, and you can exclude post types where you don’t want to display a featured image column. See our tutorial on how to add a featured image column in WordPress for details.
6. Default Featured Image





It is possible to display a default featured image in WordPress by adding code into your WordPress theme. However, many beginners don’t want to edit their theme. Default Featured Image plugin provides an easy way to do that.


Simply add a default featured image from WordPress media library. To learn more, take a look at our tutorial on how to set a default featured image in WordPress using a plugin.
7. Easy Add Thumbnail


Setting up featured images for old posts that do not have a featured image can be tricky. Easy Add Thumbnail plugin solves this problem by automatically setting up the first image in a post as featured image. Even if you or other authors on your site forget to set a featured image, this plugin will automatically set one for you.


For older posts, it sets a featured image when the post is viewed on the front-end. See our tutorial on how to add post attachment as featured image in WordPress.
8. Video Thumbnails





If you are creating a video site with WordPress, then you may want to show video thumbnails as featured images for your posts. Video Thumbnails plugin automatically checks your posts for a YouTube, Vimeo, or DailyMotion video and then automatically sets video thumbnail as the featured image for the post.


See our guide on how to add thumbnails for YouTube videos in WordPress.
9. Featured Video Plus





If you run a site where your main content is in video format, then you might want to set featured videos instead of featured images. Featured Videos Plugin allows you to easily add YouTube, Vimeo, or DailyMotion videos as featured videos.


The plugin will display your featured video in your WordPress theme where it displays featured images. See our tutorial on how to add featured video thumbnails in WordPress for more details.
10. Post Thumbnail Editor





Many WordPress themes automatically crop an image from the middle which ruins your featured image. Post Thumbnail Editor plugin allows you to edit featured images and crop them inside WordPress.


You can then use your cropped image as the featured image. See our tutorial on how to crop and edit WordPress post thumbnails for detailed instructions.
11. Default Fallback Featured Image in WordPress


An easier way to display a placeholder image for posts that do not have a featured image is by adding a default fallback featured image. Beginners can use the Default Featured Image plugin. But if you want to do it without installing a plugin, then here is what you need to do.


Simply upload your default image to your theme’s images folder and rename it to default-image.jpg. Now you will need to edit your theme files and in templates where it displays post thumbnail you will need to replace it with this code.




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<?php if ( has_post_thumbnail() ) {





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the_post_thumbnail();





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} else { ?>





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<img src="<?php bloginfo('template_directory'); ?>/images/default-image.jpg" alt="<?php the_title(); ?>" />





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<?php } ?>

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