How to Add a Featured Image Column to the WordPress Admin Posts List (Step by Step)

In WordPress sites, you may have noticed that the default “Posts” page in the WordPress admin doesn’t show a thumbnail of the featured image. You only see the post title, author, categories, and dates, but no preview of the image itself.

When managing a large blog or content-heavy website, you might upload dozens of posts with different featured images. Without thumbnails in the admin list, it’s difficult to see which post is associated with which image at a glance. In this post, we’ll look at how adding a small preview of the featured image right in the admin list can make managing posts much easier.

Solution: Add a Featured Image Column to the WordPress Admin Posts List

This code adds a new ‘Featured Image’ column to the WordPress Posts admin page, placed right after the Title column, and displays the post’s featured image thumbnail in that column.

/**
 * Add a "Featured Image" column to the Posts screen
 */
function ts_feature__image_column( $columns ) {
    $move_after     = 'title';
    $move_after_key = array_search( $move_after, array_keys( $columns ), true );

    $first_columns = array_slice( $columns, 0, $move_after_key + 1 );
    $last_columns  = array_slice( $columns, $move_after_key + 1 );

    return array_merge(
        $first_columns,
        array(
            'featured_image' => __( 'Featured Image' ),
        ),
        $last_columns
    );
}
add_filter( 'manage_posts_columns', 'ts_feature__image_column' );

/**
 * Display the featured image in the column
 */
function ts_feature__image_column_content( $column ) {
    if ( 'featured_image' === $column ) {
        if ( has_post_thumbnail() ) {
            the_post_thumbnail( array( 300, 80 ) ); // thumbnail size
        } else {
            echo '—'; // show a dash if no image
        }
    }
}
add_action( 'manage_posts_custom_column', 'ts_feature__image_column_content' );