How to Hide Featured Image in WordPress Post

eyes hiding

Do you want to hide the featured image on WordPress posts?

By default, some WordPress themes insert the featured image, also known as a post thumbnail, at the top of your blog posts.

Usually, the image displays immediately after the post title, right before the opening paragraph of the content.

But there may be times when you don’t want that to happen. Times when you want to hide the featured image without deleting it from the site.

For example …

When you want the featured image on the homepage of your site (blog archive page), but not on single post pages. On those pages, you want to use use a different top-of-page image, or even no image all at.

In this tutorial, I will show you how to easily hide featured images on specific WordPress posts, and globally across your entire site.

In This Tutorial

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Hiding Featured Images On Specific Posts

Like most WordPress tutorials that I publish here at The Blog Mechanic, there are a few different ways to achieve this. You can:

  1. Use the theme options
  2. Install a WordPress plugin
  3. Add CSS code

But not all of these methods work with every WordPress theme!

Option three, adding code, is the only method that works on every website, no matter what theme you are using.

So. If you’re comfortable with code (I will show you), you can skip straight to method three. It’ll save you time.

1. Theme Options

Some WordPress themes give you the option to remove the featured image from individual posts via the theme settings, like this …

picture of remove featured image in post theme editor option

In the screenshot above, I am using the Mai Lifestyle Pro theme from StudioPress and as you can see, on the post editor screen in the bottom right corner, I can choose to hide the featured image.

Let’s see if you can do the same. From the WordPress dashboard:

  • Go to posts >> all posts
  • Open any post with the WordPress editor

If you’re using the Gutenberg editor, the option to hide the featured image is located to the right as you can see in the image above.

But if you’re using the Classic editor, the option to remove featured image is located towards the bottom of the page, underneath the text editor.

Move on to methods 2 and 3 below if you are not able to remove the featured image via your theme settings.

2. WordPress Plugins

To hide featured images, there are two potential plugins available for download in the WordPress plugin repository.

The first one is called Hide Featured Image plugin. However, if you click that link you will see that the plugin has not been updated for quite some time. So, I don’t recommend using it.

The second plugin is called Conditionally Display Featured Image on Singular Posts and Pages. This one has recently been updated and it worked perfectly when testing it on my site.

BUT it’s not guaranteed to work with every theme. You’ll need to test it.

Note: when testing new plugins on your website, you should ALWAYS test it on a staging environment first. Plugins can cause conflicts that break your site. Use WP Staging to easily create a staging environment.

To get started, install and activate the plugin. If needed, see my guide on how to install WordPress plugins for more information.

After activating the plugin, there are no settings to configure. The plugin works out of the box.

Simply open any post with the WordPress editor and you will see that a new setting has been added to the featured image section, like this …

Picture of the hide featured image plugin settings

Check the box next to “display featured image in post lists only, hide on singular views”.

  • Update your post
  • If you have a cache plugin, clear the cache
  • Preview the post to see the plugin in action

If the featured image has gone from your post, congratulations, the plugin works with your specific theme.

Let me know if the comments box below if this plugin worked for you.

If however, you still see the featured image, that means the plugin is not compatible with your theme, and you now have two options.

  1. You can contact the theme developer (and ask them this)
  2. You can use code to hide featured images instead

It could take days, or even weeks, to hear back from the theme developer. It’ll be much quicker to just use code instead. Let’s continue.

3. Using Code

Again, this is my most recommended method because it works on every website, no matter which WordPress theme you have.

It does have a downside though!

Using code is more complicated than using the theme settings or a hide featured image plugin.

But don’t worry I’m going to walk you through it, set by step.

To follow along, you don’t need to learn the ins and outs of coding, but it will help if you understand what a CSS class is because …

The first thing you need to do is find the class assigned to featured images on your website.

Step 1: Find the CSS Class for Feature Images

To find the feature image class we will use the FireFox inspection tool.

If you don’t already have FireFox installed on your computer, you can download it here.

Once downloaded, visit any post on your website where you want to remove the featured image and watch the video below.

Don’t forget to make a note of the featured image class on a notepad document. Or just write it down. Either way, you’ll need it in the next step.

Step 2: Find the Page ID

Next, we need to find the unique identification number of the specific post you wish to hide featured image on.

To do that we will use the Firefox inspection tool again. Watch the video below and I’ll show you how.

Now that you have your post id and your featured image class, the last step is to add some custom code to your website.

Step 3: Add CSS Code to Your Website

Login to WordPress. Go to Appearance >> Customize >> Additional CSS

Now, copy the code below and paste it into the Additional CSS input area as seen in the image above.

.postid-17 .authority-featured-image {
	display: none;
}

Next:

  • Replace my “postid” with yours
  • Replace my “featured image class” with yours
  • Update the post
  • If using a caching plugin, clear the cache
  • Preview the post

Providing your page id and featured image class is correct, the post image will no longer be on the page.

Hiding Featured Images Globally

If your goal is to hide featured images on every WordPress post, all you have to do is make a small change to the code above …

Simply replace “.postid-17” with “.single-post” and everything else stays the same. Like this:

.single-post .authority-featured-image {
display: none;
}

And that’s all! You just add the code once and featured images are hidden on every WordPress post – existing posts and future posts.

Wrapping Up

As you’ve learned in this tutorial, there are a few different ways to hide featured images on your website. But every site is different.

What works for one site may not work for your site. It depends on the theme you are using.

In this post, I shared ways to hide featured images on WordPress posts:

  1. Use the theme settings – possible with some but not all themes
  2. Use a hide featured image plugin – works with some but not all themes
  3. Use CSS code – most recommended because it works with all themes

I also showed you how to hide featured images globally in just seconds.

Hiding featured images is just one of the many changes you can make to your website. However, if you’re not familiar with WordPress, making changes to your site can be time-consuming.