Hide featured image on WordPress

Introduction

How to hide featured image on a Wordpress post or page?

On many WordPress websites I've worked so far it was needed to remove the featured images on individual posts or pages.

The featured images were visible on archive pages, on homepage "Recent Posts" page, on blog page and the website owner wanted to hide it on single posts or pages. That was necessary mostly because the website owner wanted only text on posts/pages.

The featured image is usually added on top of content and hiding it on singular posts/pages helped the visitors to see the text easier. Especially when they are on mobiles and need to scroll.

There are also other reasons why you might want to hide featured image on a single post or page.

What are the options to hide the featured image on WordPress?

The first option, for many WP users, would be to use a plugin for that.

I have searched and there is a plugin which pretends to do this, but many people reported that it is not working anymore. It is not updated for 3 years or so. Besides that, it only worked with Classic Editor and not with newer WP versions which have Gutenberg enabled.

The second option would be to use some code to hide it. I have seen many solutions provided on different websites which were using CSS code to hide the featured image on a single post or page. But these CSS solution was not acceptable to me because, even if it hides the featured image on individual posts or pages, the images were actually loaded on page and just not displayed. These CSS idea were mostly using display:none;.

Another option is to use some PHP code to hide the features image. I have found some PHP code which I could have used but the problem was that it was not working with Gutenberg (the WP editor for newer versions starting from 5.0).

After I did some research I have decided to build a plugin.

ZI Hide Featured Image - WP Plugin

I'm happy to present this new hide featured image plugin for WordPress which I have built. I hope it will be of a great help for all WP users which will need to hide the post thumbnail on single posts or pages.

This plugin works with both Gutenberg Editor or Classic Editor. Now you can hide the featured images on posts, pages, custom post types (with featured image support) and WooCommerce products.

How to install and activate the plugin?

1. Download the plugin from WordPress Plugin repository.

2. Log in to your WordPress Dashboard and go to Plugins > Add New. Then click on Upload Plugin. Browse and locate the zi-hide-featured-image.zip file on your computer.

3. Activate the plugin. When a page or post is edited, just go to "Featured Image" section and check the "Hide featured image" checkbox. The featured image will not display anymore on that single post or page.

How to use this plugin

As I said above, for each individual post or page, if you want to hide the featured image, just check the "Hide featured image" checkbox.

That is all! :)

Conclusion

I really hope that this plugin will help you to hide featured images on posts or pages you want. I do expect that a very large number of people will use it.