The drill: you’ve finished writing a fantastic post, you’ve added some great images, and now it’s time for the final touches. You navigate to the sidebar to set the featured image, a crucial step for your blog’s appearance and for social media shares. But this repetitive task can become a major time drain, especially if you publish frequently. What if you could automate it? Knowing how to set featured image from first image in a post WordPress can revolutionize your workflow, ensuring every post has a featured image without a single click of manual work.
Why Automation is a Blogger’s Best Friend
Manually setting a featured image for every post is inefficient. Not only does it add an extra step to your publishing process, but it also opens the door to human error. You might forget to set one, leaving your post looking unprofessional on your homepage or in social media previews.
A plugin that automates this process ensures consistency and frees up your time to focus on what you do best: creating great content. It’s a simple “set it and forget it” solution that works in the background to ensure every piece of content is perfectly presented.
The Best Tool for the Job
While a manual code snippet can work for a single site, a professional plugin is the most reliable and user-friendly solution. We recommend using a tool like Auto Featured Image because it’s a powerful and simple plugin designed specifically for this task.
Step 1: Install and Activate the Plugin
From your WordPress dashboard, navigate to Plugins > Add New. Search for “Auto Featured Image” or a similar plugin. Click Install Now and then Activate.
How to Set Featured Image From First
Once the plugin is activated, you’ll find a new set of options in your WordPress dashboard, usually under Settings > Auto Featured Image.
- Configure the Automation: In the plugin settings, you will find options to define when the featured image should be set.
- Automatically: The plugin will automatically check for a featured image whenever you publish or update a post. If one is not set, it will find the first image in your content and set it.
- Manual Button: The plugin may also add a button to your post editor that allows you to manually run the process on a per-post basis.
- Set a Default Image: If a post has no images in its content, the plugin needs to know what to do. A great feature of these plugins is the ability to set a default fallback image. This ensures that every single post has a featured image, even if it’s a generic one. This is crucial for maintaining a clean, professional look across your blog.
Running the Bulk Command to Set Featured Image From First
The real power of this plugin is its ability to set featured image from first for all your existing content. This is invaluable for older blogs that have hundreds of posts without featured images.
- Navigate to the plugin’s settings and look for a Bulk Generate or Generate All option.
- Select the post types you want to target (e.g., Posts, Pages).
- Click the Generate button. The plugin will now go through all your selected content, find the first image in each post, and set it as the featured image. This process is usually very fast and can save you an incredible amount of time.
Why This Workflow is a Game-Changer
- Consistency: It ensures every single post has a featured image, creating a polished, professional look across your site.
- SEO & Social Sharing: Featured images are crucial for social media previews. This ensures that every time someone shares one of your posts, a compelling image will be displayed, increasing click-through rates.
- Time Savings: What would have taken days of manual work is now done in minutes, allowing you to focus on creating new content or growing your business.
Conclusion
Manually setting featured images is an outdated and inefficient practice for modern bloggers. By using a powerful plugin, you can easily set featured image from first image in post WordPress, ensuring consistency and saving yourself a tremendous amount of time. This simple automation can transform your workflow and help you focus on what truly matters—your content.