How to Hide the Featured Image in a WordPress Post Without a Plugin

Last Updated on July 4, 2026

WordPress is the most popular content management system (CMS). It offers many user-friendly and SEO-friendly features. One of these features is the featured image, which is usually displayed next to the post title on blog and archive pages and at the top of the single post page.

Sometimes, the same image is used both as the featured image and inside the post content. This can make the image appear twice on the single post page, affecting the page layout and slightly increasing page load time.

In this tutorial, you’ll learn how to automatically hide the featured image without using a plugin whenever the post already contains an image. If you’re new to featured images, read our guide on What is a Featured Image in WordPress? to understand how they work.

Why Hide the Featured Image?

Hiding the featured image is useful in the following situations:

• The same image is used as both the featured image and an image inside the post.
• You want to avoid displaying duplicate images on the single post page.
• You want to improve the page layout and reduce unnecessary content.
• The image inside the post looks better or is a different size than the featured image.

This method checks whether the post content contains an image. If it does, the featured image is hidden automatically. If the post doesn’t contain any images, the featured image is displayed as usual.

Note: This solution only hides the featured image when the post content already contains at least one image.

Step 1: Log in to Your Hosting Account

Log in to your hosting control panel (cPanel) or connect to your website using an FTP client.

Step 2: Open Your Theme Folder

Navigate to your active theme folder:

wp-content/themes/your-theme/

Step 3: Locate the Single Post Template

Find the template file that displays single posts. In many WordPress themes, this file is:

template-parts/content-single.php

Your theme may use a different file, so search for the the_post_thumbnail() function if you cannot find this file.

Step 4: Find the Featured Image Code

Search for:

<?php
the_post_thumbnail( 'full', [ 'class' => 'class_name' ] );
?>

Step 5: Replace It with the Following Code

<?php
if ( has_post_thumbnail() ) {

$content = get_the_content();

// Check whether the post content contains an image.
if ( ! preg_match_all( '/<img[^>]+src=[\'"]([^\'"]+)[\'"]/i', $content, $matches ) ) {

the_post_thumbnail( 'full', [ 'class' => 'class_name' ] );

}
}
?>

The preg_match_all() function searches the post content for image tags. You can learn more about it in the official PHP documentation.

How the Code Works

• Checks whether the post has a featured image.
• Scans the post content for <img> tags.
• If an image is found, the featured image is hidden.
• If no image is found, the featured image is displayed normally.

Important: Replace class_name with the CSS class used by your theme. The template file location may also differ depending on your theme.

If you have any questions or run into any issues, feel free to leave a comment below. We’ll be happy to help.

Frequently Asked Questions

Related WordPress Tutorials

• What Is a Featured Image in WordPress?
• How to Hide Featured Images in WordPress Using CSS
• How to Hide Featured Images in WordPress Using CSS
• WordPress Template Hierarchy