<p>This plugin will scan your thumbnail-less posts and look for a suitable image to use as a thumbnail.<br />
It will look for images linked in the post content and will download and add them to the local library.<br />
Post scanning is performed only when <code>the_post_thumbnail</code> or <code>get_the_post_thumbnail</code> are called for<br />
that particular post.</p>
<p>So you designed your new thumbnail-based template, but you have tons of thumbnail-less posts and<br />
don’t want to spend too much time on scraping your old posts for a thumbnail picture. Maybe you<br />
think you will probably forget to set a thumbnail for your new posts. Maybe both, as was my case :).</p>
<p>When a thumbnail for a post is queried and nothing is found this plugin will scrape the post for<br />
an <code><img></code> tag and its <code>href</code> property. Once a suitabile image is found (based on the configured<br />
settings), it will be downloaded ad set as the post thumbnail. If no suitable image is found,<br />
a default one will be used.</p>
<p>This plugin is still in early development state. It just covers my needs (see the “To do” section<br />
for more details). It has been tested only with wordpress 3.0.1, but should work also with 2.9,<br />
since I used similar code with 2.9 (even if it was included in my template’s <code>functions.php</code>).</p>
<p>The plugin is not supported. This doesn’t mean that I will not look into submitted bugs. Anyway,<br />
don’t expect prompt answers, since this is done in my spare time.</p>
<h3>To do</h3>
<p>Many things should be done in future releases. Here are some:</p>
<ul>
<li>Current version always downloads selected linked images. This works good with images hosted on external sites.<br />
If your posts link to images hosted in your media library, you will end up with two images.</li>
<li>A more user friendly name should be used for images added to the library (e.g. Thumbnail for post …)</li>
<li>Somewhere, a button to reset the “previously scanned” status of all posts should be provided (on current version,<br />
you cas set or reset it for single posts in the edit page.</li>
<li>“previously scanned” status should probably be reset (or at least you should be asked to) when publishing a<br />
updating an existing post</li>
</ul>
<p>More ideas are wellcome.</p>


Automatic Thumbnail Generator

Automated on-demand generation of posts thumbnails.

Justin Tadlock

<p>Get the Image is one of the most advanced thumbnail/image scripts ever created for WordPress.</p>
<p>It is used everywhere from small blogs to large, enterprise-level solutions like <a href="http://vip.wordpress.com/" rel="nofollow ugc">WordPress.com VIP</a>.  Get the Image offers something for everybody. Much of the reason for its success is because it uses standard WordPress code and methods for doing what it needs to do, which is to simply grab images.</p>
<p>The plugin was designed to make the process of adding thumbnail, featured, slider, gallery, and other images to your blog much easier, but it’s so much more than that.  It is an image-based representation of your WordPress posts.</p>
<p>This is a highly intuitive script that can grab an image by custom field input, WordPress’ featured image, post attachment, or extracting it from the post’s content.  Plus, a lot more!</p>
<h3>Before using</h3>
<p>Please note that Get the Image requires that you understand and know how to edit your theme’s PHP code, at least to the extent of copying and pasting one line of code.  If you’re not comfortable doing this, it’s best to ask that your theme author integrate the code necessary to support this plugin.</p>
<h3>A little history</h3>
<p>The original plugin was in launched 2008, which means it has several years of solid testing and development behind it.  It was created at a time when WordPress had very little native media support.  At the time, it was mostly used as a “thumbnail” script for magazine-/news-style sites.  But, it has grown into a much more flexible script over the years.</p>
<p>Even with WordPress’ more recent advancements in image management, many users still continue using this plugin because it offers a more robust image script than core WordPress.</p>
<p>The plugin has been downloaded 100,000s of times and is used on millions of sites as part of WordPress theme packages.</p>
<p>Other image plugins have come and gone, but Get the Image has stood the test of time with several years of successful installs and happy users.</p>
<h3>Professional support</h3>
<p>If you need professional plugin support from me, the plugin author, you can join the club at <a href="https://themehybrid.com/club" rel="nofollow ugc">Theme Hybrid</a>, which is a professional WordPress help/support site where I handle support for all my plugins and themes for a community of 75,000+ users (and growing).</p>
<h3>Plugin Development</h3>
<p>If you’re a theme author, plugin author, or just a code hobbyist, you can follow the development of this plugin on its <a href="https://github.com/justintadlock/get-the-image" rel="nofollow ugc">GitHub repository</a>.</p>
<h3>Donations</h3>
<p>Yes, I do accept donations.  If you want to donate, you can do so from my <a href="https://themehybrid.com/donate" rel="nofollow ugc">donations page</a> or grab me something from my <a href="http://a.co/flUb0ns" rel="nofollow ugc">Amazon Wish List</a>.</p>
<p>I appreciate all donations, no matter the size.  Further development of this plugin is not contingent on donations, but they are always a nice incentive.</p>


Get the Image

Nice plugin, I use it for all of my sites.



Just works

An easy-to-use image script for adding things such as thumbnail, slider, gallery, and feature images.

Automatic Thumbnail Generator vs Get the Image