How to Set Featured Image to a Post Automatically in WordPress

Setting a featured image to a post in WordPress is a great way to make your posts stand out and grab the attention of readers. It can also help you create a consistent look and feel for your blog or website. Fortunately, there are several ways to set featured images to posts automatically in WordPress.

A way to set featured images to posts automatically is to use a custom script. This requires some coding knowledge, but it can be a great way to automate the process. If you are finding a solution to set featured images automatically in WordPress, the following code lines will help you save several minutes.

The action below only supports setting featured images on updating a post. The function first checks if a post already has a featured image. If not, it queries all images uploaded to the post and set the first uploaded image as the featured one.

function my_plugin_set_feature($post_id) {
	if (!has_post_thumbnail($post_id))  {
		$attached_images = get_children("post_parent=$post_id&post_type=attachment&post_mime_type=image&numberposts=1" );
		if ($attached_images) {
			foreach ($attached_images as $attachment_id => $attachment) {
				set_post_thumbnail($post_id, $attachment_id);
				break;
			}
		}
	}
}
add_action('save_post', 'my_plugin_set_feature');