How To Hide A Featured Image In A WordPress Post

You’ve started a blog for your business on WordPress, and everything is going great! Except you just can’t quite work out how to hide the featured image in your WordPress post…

We’ve got you! There are many different reasons why you might want to hide a featured image in a WordPress post. In this article, we are going to be taking a look at these whilst showing you how to hide a featured image in a WordPress post.

What Is A WordPress Featured Image?

The featured image is what you see at the very beginning of your blog post. When readers are scrolling through categorized blog posts on your website, the featured image will likely appear as a thumbnail alongside the title of the blog post.

If you want readers to read your content, you need to use a bold featured image to bring it to their attention. What better way to capture and hold the attention of your website visitors than with an eye-catching image that helps your blog post scream “read me!”.

The featured image will also be the thumbnail that represents your blog posts when it is shared on social media. With this in mind, the feature image that you choose can influence the success of your blog content.

However, there are scenarios where you might like to hide said featured image in the WordPress post.

Why You Might Hide The Featured Image In A WordPress Post

Let us tell you that… not all WordPress themes are created equally.

What this means is that the coding behind some themes ensures the featured image is used as both the thumbnail and the first thing readers see when viewing the full post.

While on the other hand, some themes let you set a featured image, which doesn’t show in the post at all.

If your theme is the former, there are a few occasions where you may prefer to hide the featured image in a WordPress post. For example, you’d like the first thing the reader sees to be:

• A funky video about a topic relating to the blog content.

• A compelling paragraph to draw them right into the written content.

• An alternative image to that of the featured image, such as an infographic.

So, how do we hide a featured image in a WordPress post to allow some flexibility in how our posts are presented?

Let’s find out!

How to Hide The Featured Image In A WordPress Post

There are three ways to achieve this...

#1 - Adjusting The Post Settings To Hide A Featured Image

Some more recently developed themes can hide your featured image by adjusting the post settings.

To find out whether your theme has this option, simply open your post in editor view, and click into the ‘Featured Image’ tab on the right.

If you can tick a box that says Hide Featured Image from Post, you’re rocking and rolling!

If not, keep reading my friend.

#2 - Download A Specialist Plugin For Hiding Featured Images

The best thing about WordPress is that there is a plugin for almost everything!

If you’re not comfortable with adding CSS to your website, a plugin should be able to help you hide the featured image. We say should because the plugin does need to be compatible with your theme to work properly.

For example, this plugin looks easy to use, has over 5,000 active installations, good reviews, and appears to consistently updated.

#3 - Use CSS Code To Hide The Featured Image

If neither of the above options work for you, adding a simple line of code to your Additional CSS should do the trick!

To get there, on the left of your WordPress dashboard scroll down to ‘Appearance → Customize → Additional CSS’, and paste the following:

.entry-thumbnail { display: none; }

Be sure to save and publish before you exit to successfully hide your featured image.

That’s It!

So, now you know exactly how to hide a featured image in a WordPress post.

We hope this gives you the freedom to choose how you want your blog posts to be represented and displayed - leaving plenty of room for that awesome video content or infographic you created to skyrocket your blog post!