How to Hide Featured Image in WordPress (2 Easy Methods)

Learning how to hide a featured image in WordPress is a useful skill to have in your toolbox. This way, you have the utmost flexibility when deciding which featured images to show and which ones not to.

In this post, we guide you through two methods to hide featured images in WordPress. You can do it by:

Keep reading to learn about them.

Method 1: Use a plugin that hides featured images conditionally

Featured images appear in two locations:

• Posts/Pages: somewhere (usually at the beginning of every individual post you create), assuming you’ve uploaded featured images
• The Blog page: the list of posts you have published on your website

If you think about conditionally hiding or displaying featured images, you can do it with a plugin.

In layman’s terms, that’s a fancy way of saying you can hide a featured image on specific pages, and it’s all handled by a plugin.

For this, you’ll use a plugin called “Conditionally display featured image on singular posts and pages.“

Step 1: Install and activate the plugin

If you’ve ever installed a WordPress plugin on your site, then you can skip ahead to the next step because it’s the same as any other plugin.

For those of you who are new to WordPress or need a refresher, this is done through the admin screen after you log in:

• Click on Plugins → Add Plugin.
• On the next screen, in the search field, type in “conditionally display” and wait a few seconds.
• Once you see the plugin auto-populate, tap on Install Now, followed by Activate.

Step 2: Locate the featured image you want to hide and hide it

Next, from the same admin screen, go to either Pages or Posts (depending on whether you want to hide a featured image in a specific page or a post).

Find the page or postFor the remainder of this section, we'll use 'post' but in practice, they work identically so the semantic choice doesn't make a difference here. where you’d like to hide the featured image and click on Edit:

Once you’re inside the block editor, look over at the righthand side menu. Under the Post tab (not the Block tab) you should see the featured image.

Directly below it, a new option will be visible (thanks to the plugin).

It will read: “Display featured image in post lists only, hide on singular views.”

Mark the checkbox to activate the feature.

Be sure to click the Update/Save button (for live posts) or the Publish button (for posts in draft status) to make the changes live.

For updates, if you happen to catch the popup window on the bottom left that comes up after you click Update/Save, then tap on View Post. This will bring you to the next step.

If not, no worries. You can always get to the frontend of the post using your preferred method (e.g., via the icons on the top right, going back to the posts via the admin screen, etc).

Step 3: Check the frontend of your site to make sure the image is hidden

If everything went smoothly, you should see that the featured image is no longer visible:

However, if you check a different post, where there is a link back to the post where you hid the featured image, you should still see it load normally:

The same applies to your Blog page list. You’ll see the featured image load normally there too.

And that’s because the true purpose of the plugin is to hide the featured image—without forcing you to delete the image—on only one post or page.

And for that, it works perfectly…except when it doesn’t. 😵

Troubleshooting

In most instances, the plugin will work just fine. However, there are some themes that are coded in a way where the featured image is custom loaded differently. The Themeisle flagship theme – Neve – actually happens to be an example of this.

Luckily, there are some easy fixes and the plugin’s own documentation gives you workaround instructions.

• From the admin menu, just go to Plugins → Installed Plugins.
• Then find the plugin on the list and click on View details.
• This will bring up a popup window. Click on the FAQ menu tab in that window to bring up the troubleshooting solutions.

And if you do happen to be using Neve, the correct solution is the first one shown.

To implement it, all you have to do is access your functions.php file:

• From the admin screen go to Appearance → Theme File Editor.
• Then open up the file and paste the following code snippet all the way at the bottom of the file, below everything else:

function cybocfi_set_startup_hook() {
    return 'get_header';
}

add_filter( 'cybocfi_startup_hook', 'cybocfi_set_startup_hook' );
add_filter( 'cybocfi_only_hide_in_the_loop', '__return_false' );

• Don’t forget to click Update File when you’re done.

If you’re using some other theme and this solution doesn’t work, try the other one in the FAQ section and it should solve the issue.

Method 2: Use your theme’s settings to hide featured images (if available)

Many WordPress themes already have options to hide featured images, so it’s wise to check your theme settings before installing extra plugins.

However, keep in mind that this method might not work for you if your theme does not provide this setting. It might also be limited in terms of the ways it lets you hide featured images (i.e., in individual posts, sitewide, or thumbnails).

👉 To help you get an idea of where to look to find this option in your theme, let’s take Neve again as an example. It allows you to hide your featured image sitewide – both in posts and in places where it loads as a thumbnail.

It does not, however, allow you to hide it for individual posts. For that it’s best to use the plugin method above.

Let’s go through the two options:

• Hide featured images where they appear as thumbnails
• Hide featured images from all single post pages

Hide featured images where they appear as thumbnails

With Neve installed:

• Go to Appearance → Customize.
• Then click on Blog → Blog/Archive.

Find the Post Content Order section and click the Eye icon where it says Thumbnail.

That deactivates the featured image from being able to display as a thumbnail on your Blog page and other locations like post carousels.

As a result, the Blog page will only show post titles, descriptions, and whatever metadata you include.

Hide featured images from all single post pages

The Neve theme also offers the option to hide all featured images on posts, across your entire site.

To do it:

• Navigate to Appearance → Customize.
• Then click on Blog → Single Post.

You’ll see two header layout styles – Normal and Cover.

• Scroll down to the Elements Order section of the Customizer.
• Unmark the Eye icon next to the Thumbnail element.
• That will hide the “Thumbnail,” (which is where the featured image is stored in this layout) from view on the post. You’ll also notice that because it’s now a hidden element, that it will automatically be shuffled below the visible elements in the Elements Order section.

Scroll down in that same section to find a toggle that says Hide Featured Image. Click on it. Then wait a second or two for it to hide the image.

Once you see that the image is hidden, hit the Publish button at the top.

And just one more friendly reminder that this will hide all of your featured images in every single post, across your entire website.

💡 Keep in mind, however, that hiding the featured image for posts in the theme settings still leaves them visible on the Blog page and in post carousels. So, it’s a wonderful option if you want less clutter on posts but still like thumbnail featured images on the Blog page and in other sections of your site.

Of course, if you prefer to hide your featured images from thumbnails as well, you can always do that using the method shown earlier.

Summary

In this article, we covered two handy options for hiding featured images, including:

• Conditionally hiding a featured image in WordPress by way of plugin
• Hiding featured images with your theme settings (if your theme allows you to)

If you’re overwhelmed 😟 by creating featured images for each post, we also have a post that shows you how to easily create featured images using Canva ⬅️.

Do you still have any questions about how to hide the featured image in WordPress? Ask us in the comments!