Easy Add Thumbnail
NOTE: This plugin functionality is guaranteed by more than 10,000 active installs. But before installing this plugin bear in mind that its only purpose is to ADD the feature image ID to your post (in the same way that…
Use with caution
Easy Add Thumbnail works, but test it on a staging site before relying on it in 2026. It runs on 7K+ sites, is rated 4.5/5 and was last updated 3 years ago, and scores 44/100 on our health check.
- Loved by users — 4.5/5 from 52 reviews
- No update in 2 years
- Only tested up to WordPress 6.3 (latest is 7.1)
Daily downloads
Download spikes usually follow a new release — each site that auto-updates counts as a download.
Rankings
Where Easy Add Thumbnail stands todayWordPress.org search rankings
Live position in the plugin search, top 100| Keyword | Position |
|---|---|
| automatic feature image | >100 |
| automatic thumbail | #1 |
| featured image | >100 |
| thumbnail | >100 |
| thumbnails | >100 |
Version adoption
Share of active sites per release.
Rating breakdown
★★★★★★★★★★ 4.5 from 52 reviews
About Easy Add Thumbnail
From the official readme · v1.1.3Description
NOTE: This plugin functionality is guaranteed by more than 10,000 active installs. But before installing this plugin bear in mind that its only purpose is to ADD the feature image ID to your post (in the same way that you would do using WP editor), it does not remove ANYTHING after deactivation.
Before asking for support please read FAQ and this support thread
How it works?
Checks if the post (any post type with thumbnail support, including pages) has already a featured image associated, and if not sets it using one of the following methods:
-
Dynamically, for old published posts, the featured images are set only when needed to show them in the frontend. This means that the featured image is set (only first time) when a visitor loads the page where it needs to be shown.
-
For new content, the featured image is set in the publishing process.
No options page to setup, simply install and activate.
If you want to exclude certain post type (e.g. pages), you can do it by using a filter. See FAQ for more details.
Easy Add Thumbnail doesn’t add any plugin data to your WordPress database. It simply adds the _thumbnail_id meta key with the ID of the attachment to be used as feature image (just the same that WordPress does when you set it manually).
Therefore it requires to have attached/uploaded at least one image to the post. If there’s not any image attached to the post, this plugin can’t help you.
Easy Add Thumbnail has not any control over how/when/where your featured image is displayed in your site, the display of the featured image in your site is TOTALLY controlled by your theme, this includes size, position, display it or not…
Requirements
- WordPress 4.7 or higher.
- PHP 5.6 or higher.
Installation
- Extract the zip file and just drop the contents in the
wp-content/plugins/directory of your WordPress installation (or install it directly from your dashboard) and then activate the Plugin from Plugins page.
IMPORTANT! Remember that your theme must support the use of thumbnails, if not, the thumbnail information will be set in the database but you’ll not see them in your site.
Frequently asked questions
Can I use this plugin for setting featured image using some image not attached to the post?
No. This plugin uses only standard WordPress functions to set the featured image. And using this standard (and friendly) method WordPress simply has not any knowing about images not attached to the post.
How can I check if a post has “attached” images?
In that post edit screen, click the “Add Media button”, then click to “Media Library” tab, and select “Uploaded to this post” in the dropdown, you must see at least one image. If you see the “No items found.” message, that means that your images were not uploaded within that post. And therefore, the plugin can’t use any image to set as feature image. If you can see images when selecting “Uploaded to this post” but the plugin is not using it for feature image. You need to try for theme/plugins conflicting. Try using a WordPress default theme (i.e. Twenty Fifteen) and disabling all other…
My theme is showing big images instead of thumbnail sizes, what happens?
As stated above this plugin uses standard WordPress method to set the featured image, this does not include any size information. The size used by your theme for displaying image thumbnails depends totally on how your theme was coded. Contact to your theme author for support if you’re having this problem. You can find more information about how to properly show thumbnails in your theme on codex reference for the_post_thumbnail (check ‘Thumbnail Sizes’ section) and set_post_thumbnail_size functions.
How can I exclude pages or other post types ?
If you don’t want to use Easy Add Thumbnail for your pages or any other post type, you can exclude them by simply adding a little snippet of code to your theme functions.php file before enabling the plugin. The following example will exclude pages: add_filter ('eat_exclude_types', 'my_excluded_types', 10, 1); function my_excluded_types ( $exclude_types ){ $exclude_types[] = 'page'; return $exclude_types; } If you want to exclude a custom post type you need to know the value of ‘name’ used in register_post_type() function for registering that post type. e.g. If you have a custom post type and…
Is the post thumbnail and featured image the same?
Yes. When I released first version of this plugin years ago, featured images was named as post thumbnails, but later WordPress team decided to change the name to “featured image”. In fact, WordPress core functions for featured image, still uses original thumbnail names. That’s because the plugin name (that can’t be changed in the Extend directory without having issues) says “thumbnail”.
Will this plugin works in WordPress older than 4.7?
Maybe, but WordPress installs older than 4.7 are not supported by me. Try at your own risk.
Changelog
This upgrade requires WordPress 3.7 or higher!
1.1.3
- More changes for coding standards, now the entire file is 100% conform to WordPress Coding Standards. This doesn’t means any change in the plugin functionality, it’s just code cosmetic.
1.1.2
- Minor coding standards changes
1.1.1
- Added ‘eat_exclude_types’ filter to allow excluding post types from the process
- Minor code cleanup and more comments added
1.1
- Changed plugin code to be WordPres 3.7 or higher compatible. So now WordPress 3.7 or higher is required and older WordPress versions are not supported.
- Cleanup some code not needed after raising min. required version to 3.7
1.0.2
- When updating the readme.txt I copied by error another plugin readme to trunk, causing the plugin closed by WordPress.org staff. This release is only to fix the mistake made with readme as requested by WordPress.org staff. Sorry!!
1.0.1
- Hooks added to set the thumbnail when publishing too.
For developers
Is this your plugin? Show off the numbers.
Add a live badge to your site, docs or GitHub README. It updates on its own — no account needed.
FAQ
Easy Add Thumbnail: quick answers
Straight answers, pulled from live WordPress.org data.
Live data from WordPress.org · checked Sep 28, 2026
Is Easy Add Thumbnail free?
Yes. Easy Add Thumbnail is free to download and use from the official WordPress.org plugin directory.
Is Easy Add Thumbnail safe to use in 2026?
Easy Add Thumbnail works, but test it on a staging site before relying on it in 2026. It runs on 7K+ sites, is rated 4.5/5 and was last updated 3 years ago, and scores 44/100 on our health check.
How many websites use Easy Add Thumbnail?
Easy Add Thumbnail is active on 7K+ WordPress websites and has been downloaded 169,521 times since it launched in March 2010. It was downloaded 296 times in the last 30 days.
Does Easy Add Thumbnail work with WordPress 7.1?
Easy Add Thumbnail is officially tested up to WordPress 6.3.12, while the latest release is 7.1.2. It may still work, but try it on a staging site first.
What PHP version does Easy Add Thumbnail need?
Easy Add Thumbnail requires PHP 5.6 or higher. Most hosts run PHP 8.x today, so it works on any modern WordPress hosting.
When was Easy Add Thumbnail last updated?
The latest version, 1.1.3, was released on October 5, 2023 (3 years ago).
Who makes Easy Add Thumbnail?
Easy Add Thumbnail is developed and maintained by Samuel Aguilera.
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