Show Featured Image in Your WordPress Admin Dashboard
When you are working with a WordPress theme that relies heavily on the use of a featured image, it is helpful having a visual guide showing where you have used them.
I am currently working on a site that uses the WordPress thumbnail as the background image in several places. It’s important that administrators can see whether a featured image has been set on Posts, Pages or custom post types, or some of the theme impact will be lost.
To make things easier, I wanted to show a thumbnail in the Admin dashboard of the featured image that had been set. Rather than use a plugin, I added some code to the functions.php in my theme. I found the code here on crunchify.com. I’m adding it below for my own convenience!
Quick note: Thanks to Laura at thepixelpixie.com for her debugging.
How to add a featured image to the WordPress admin list pages
Open up the functions.php file in your theme and add this code.
This file contains bidirectional Unicode text that may be interpreted or compiled differently than what appears below. To review, open the file in an editor that reveals hidden Unicode characters.
Learn more about bidirectional Unicode characters
<?php | |
// show featured images in dashboard | |
add_image_size( 'haizdesign-admin-post-featured-image', 120, 120, false ); | |
// Add the posts and pages columns filter. They both use the same function. | |
add_filter('manage_posts_columns', 'haizdesign_add_post_admin_thumbnail_column', 2); | |
add_filter('manage_pages_columns', 'haizdesign_add_post_admin_thumbnail_column', 2); | |
// Add the column | |
function haizdesign_add_post_admin_thumbnail_column($haizdesign_columns){ | |
$haizdesign_columns['haizdesign_thumb'] = __('Featured Image'); | |
return $haizdesign_columns; | |
} | |
// Manage Post and Page Admin Panel Columns | |
add_action('manage_posts_custom_column', 'haizdesign_show_post_thumbnail_column', 5, 2); | |
add_action('manage_pages_custom_column', 'haizdesign_show_post_thumbnail_column', 5, 2); | |
// Get featured-thumbnail size post thumbnail and display it | |
function haizdesign_show_post_thumbnail_column($haizdesign_columns, $haizdesign_id){ | |
switch($haizdesign_columns){ | |
case 'haizdesign_thumb': | |
if( function_exists('the_post_thumbnail') ) { | |
echo the_post_thumbnail( 'haizdesign-admin-post-featured-image' ); | |
} | |
else | |
echo 'hmm… your theme doesn\'t support featured image…'; | |
break; | |
} | |
} | |
?> |
You should now see a new column when viewing your Posts and Pages in list view:

Add Column for Featured Images in WordPress
Hi there,
Your code has some errors. First, the apostrophes are curly and all have to be changed in your editor. Second, you’re missing brackets in your if statement near the end. Third and final, this eliminates all the other columns for the posts and pages instead of adding the image column.
Thanks very much Laura,
I have updated the code. I have encoded this now so the apostrophes are correct and added the missing brackets. It was not eliminating the other other columns in any of the sites where I have added it, but again, thanks for Pixie-Debugging!
Excellent! Does exactly what I was hoping.
I was a bit puzzled by the “haizdesign” code – but it works unedited on my website, so I won’t question it.
Cheers!
Great tutorial! thank you!
Quick question, how i can movie the column to be the first in line?
It works, but… Doesn’t include the image settled as default featured image!
Thanks for this excellent addition! Makes editing pages a snap now.
SAME QUESTION…