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WPBeginner» Blog» Beginners Guide» How to Fix Featured Images Appearing Twice in WordPress Posts

How to Fix Featured Images Appearing Twice in WordPress Posts

Last updated on April 3rd, 2020 by Editorial Staff
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How to Fix Featured Images Appearing Twice in WordPress Posts

For regular WordPress users, creating a post in WordPress is a fairly easy process. However, for those just starting out, there are still things that they might find confusing.

While the featured images functionality is a total life saver, it requires some basic understanding of WordPress to properly use it.

Recently one of our readers reached out to us with a problem that their featured image was displaying twice. It is a fairly common image problem that can easily be solved. In this article, we will show you how to fix featured images appearing twice in WordPress posts.

Fixing WordPress featured image appearing twice

Why Featured Image is appearing Twice in my WordPress Posts?

The most common reason for a featured image or post thumbnail to appear twice in WordPress posts is that sometimes beginners set a featured image and also insert it into the post content.

Featured image appearing twice

This actually makes sense to most beginners because when they set a featured image, they expect it to appear in their content area. When it does not appear in the content editor, they feel that they may have missed something and end up inserting the same image again in the post.

This time they can see it in the block editor and feel satisfied. But when they publish the post, they notice that the image is appearing twice on their post.

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How to Fix this?

Just remove the image from the post editor and make sure you use the featured image box to set your featured image.

Avoid duplicate featured image

Featured images or post thumbnails are a WordPress theme feature. This means that the support for this feature is handled by your WordPress theme which is why you don’t see how it looks in your post editor.

When you set a featured image for a post, the database communicates with your theme that there is a featured image that can be displayed automatically. This allows theme developers to use consistent styles for post thumbnails and featured images through out your website.

While this may fix the duplicate featured image issue for most users, you may also come across some other surprising issues. For example if you change the theme, then your featured images may look stretched, skewed, and disproportionate. To fix this you will need to regenerate image sizes in WordPress.

If the above solution does not help fix the problem of featured images appearing twice, then there is an issue with the underlying code of your theme. In this case, the best solution is to contact your theme developer for help.

Check out the solution for other common image issues in WordPress.

We hope this article helped you fix featured images appearing twice in your WordPress posts.

If you liked this article, then please subscribe to our YouTube Channel for WordPress video tutorials. You can also find us on Twitter and Facebook.

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39 Comments

Leave a Reply
  1. Brianna says:
    Jun 12, 2020 at 7:30 am

    Hi,
    When going to my post I don’t have the option of “set featured image” on the side. Actually, my posts tab looks nothing like yours.

    Reply
    • WPBeginner Support says:
      Jun 12, 2020 at 9:35 am

      You may want to ensure your site is not on WordPress.com, we explain the differences in our article below:
      https://www.wpbeginner.com/beginners-guide/self-hosted-wordpress-org-vs-free-wordpress-com-infograph/

      Reply
  2. Shaye says:
    May 12, 2020 at 3:07 pm

    I tried removing the top image in my post so that it wouldn’t duplicate. Now it shows up at the top when I go to my main blog address. I was pretty happy about that, except that when I went directly to the post where I set the featured image, the image isn’t visible there because I deleted it from the actual post. I’m part of communities where we link to direct posts and so now my fellow community members cannot see the feature photo unless they exit back out to my “home” page. :(

    Reply
    • WPBeginner Support says:
      May 13, 2020 at 8:56 am

      That design is determined by your specific theme, you would first want to reach out to your theme’s support for displaying the featured image on the post’s page.

      Reply
  3. Robin says:
    Aug 26, 2019 at 11:45 pm

    I actually want the featured image to appear later in the post but with Featured Image function, it shows at the top.

    I like to use this feature as otherwise Facebook shares will just show whatever is the first picture in the post, which I do not want.

    How do I get this control?

    Reply
    • WPBeginner Support says:
      Aug 27, 2019 at 9:50 am

      Sadly, for that type of customization, you would either need to reach out to your theme’s support about customization or use a page builder plugin

      Reply
  4. viji says:
    Mar 18, 2019 at 2:13 pm

    thank you

    Reply
    • WPBeginner Support says:
      Mar 19, 2019 at 1:47 pm

      You’re welcome :)

      Reply
  5. Faizan says:
    Sep 10, 2018 at 12:57 pm

    I have just migrated from blogger so there are several posts. Removing post images and adding to featured images would be time-consuming. Can I do it all at once?

    Reply
  6. Haider says:
    Sep 9, 2018 at 4:12 pm

    if both images are different means the media and feature image so what to do?

    Reply
  7. Sandy says:
    Apr 26, 2018 at 1:38 pm

    Thank you!! Double pics were driving me nutty! You’re the best!

    Reply
  8. Indika says:
    Oct 18, 2017 at 3:44 pm

    Hey thanks man! This post really helped me out as I was getting duplicate images after changing my theme!

    Reply
  9. Toni says:
    Mar 7, 2017 at 5:36 pm

    This worked for my site, which runs on the Divi Elegant template. I wish there was a way to do this for all my posts though, instead of having to go manually and delete the images from the posts.

    Reply
  10. Jessica A. says:
    Mar 2, 2017 at 5:54 pm

    I deleted the image in the article and left it as the Featured Image (more than once) and now it does not show in the article at all?

    Reply
  11. calvin says:
    Feb 10, 2017 at 2:48 am

    i accidentally deleted some codes from homepage..now my sliders appear twice on the homepage ..what should i do to avoid this

    Reply
  12. RAVI kUMAR GUPTA says:
    Feb 4, 2017 at 3:22 pm

    how do i give credit to copyright images while using it in feature image
    of the post

    Reply
    • WPBeginner Support says:
      Feb 4, 2017 at 4:43 pm

      You can give credit in your post.

      Reply
  13. giselle says:
    Mar 12, 2016 at 10:44 am

    woo hoo thanks!!!!

    Reply
  14. Tom says:
    Oct 22, 2015 at 9:47 am

    I’ve just taken over a blog & WP is driving me insane. I have an issue similar to this but not quite the same. If I delete the second image (so I now only see the featured image once and it’s not repeated) how do I get the 1st paragraph of copy to appear above the image, not below it?

    Thanks

    Reply
    • WPBeginner Support says:
      Oct 22, 2015 at 11:20 am

      Your theme displays featured image before the content or next to it. If you want to display an image after the first paragraph then you need to add it as a normal image instead of featured image.

      Reply
      • Sandra Evans says:
        Dec 8, 2017 at 9:24 am

        I had the same problem, but when I do what you said, I don’t have a thumbnail show for prior posts.

        Reply
  15. Katina says:
    Jun 28, 2015 at 4:45 pm

    Thank you SO much for this info!!! I have been searching forever!!!
    It works for me however when I open the post the image is left aligned and all the other images are centered. How do I set the featured image to centered once I open the post?

    THANKS AGAIN
    K

    Reply
    • WPBeginner Support says:
      Jun 28, 2015 at 9:18 pm

      Your WordPress theme handles how featured images are displayed on your website. You can use CSS in your child theme to adjust image alignment.

      Reply
    • Paravada says:
      Aug 25, 2017 at 12:41 am

      Did you find the solution for image alignment?

      Reply
  16. annie says:
    Jun 12, 2015 at 6:27 am

    I have a self-hosted WordPress blog running the Sela theme. I have set in my pages a featured image. Yesterday I changed the page to full width page in page attributes. When I check my featured image in page preview it appears. When I visit my site the featured images do not appear at all.

    How can I solve this?

    Many thanks!

    annie

    Reply
    • WPBeginner Support says:
      Jun 12, 2015 at 6:06 pm

      Please contact your theme developer for support.

      Reply
  17. zana says:
    Apr 10, 2015 at 5:50 am

    Hi,

    My issue is different. I normally get a text code from the licensor of the photo and I insert the text onto the body of the post and the photo will show normally. Now, I want to know how can I use the same photo as featured image? Because the photo won’t show unless you open the article and see it.
    And If I select the featured image option, then two photos will show. The one that I put in the body with the text code and the one as a featured image.
    Thanks

    Reply
  18. Ankit says:
    Nov 17, 2014 at 1:54 pm

    Thanks for the wonderful info. I want to know that if the thumnail photo and blog photo is different, then what we have to do in that case

    Reply
  19. Alice Baker says:
    Aug 2, 2014 at 1:44 pm

    This works but what if I don’t want a thumbnail image in my post? What If in the post I want a full sized image? The other issue I have is that sometime I con’t want the lead image in my post to be the same image as the thumbnail used other places.

    Reply
  20. Cali Swahili says:
    Jul 1, 2014 at 4:17 pm

    I have been looking everywhere for a solution to this and this simple step have solved my problem. Thanks so much!

    Reply
  21. WPBeginner Staff says:
    May 5, 2014 at 6:43 pm

    Yes this article does not help you with that.

    Featured images are a theme feature, usually when it is added to a theme it becomes available to all posts by default. Disabling support for featured images in the theme will disable them on all future post as well.

    To disable featured image support for your theme you need to find this line in your theme’s files (the location of this line varies but most of the time it is found in functions.php file)

    add_theme_support( ‘post-thumbnails’ );

    On the other hand you can avoid altering your theme and keep using featured images. For your past posts you can display a generic default fallback image, or you can display a fallback image based on post category.

    Reply
  22. Alex Smith says:
    May 4, 2014 at 5:13 pm

    Some themes have the option to display a featured image in your posts; some don’t. So for someone like me, who switched from a theme that didn’t support them, to one that by default automatically does, I’m looking for a way to disable them in all past posts in this new theme. This article does not help with that.

    Reply
  23. Frances says:
    Apr 25, 2014 at 8:46 am

    Just found this post and it really was an eye opener. I have changed my post accordingly and understand now why I was getting the double images. The other issue I’m having is that I just changed my theme and now my featured images are not showing when publicized to FB. Trying to figure out what happened. Do you have any advice for fixing this issue?

    Thanks so much.

    Frances

    Reply
  24. Deepak says:
    Feb 28, 2014 at 7:32 am

    I am fresh beginner in wordpress.

    Reply
  25. Johnny says:
    Feb 20, 2014 at 5:13 am

    But when i have a big blog and now i will change to show feature images directly in theme? Any function to automaticly delete the first picture in all posts?

    Reply
  26. shrikant says:
    Feb 19, 2014 at 11:32 pm

    May i resize this feature image at the time of setting is as a featured image plz help me

    Reply
  27. Nanette says:
    Feb 19, 2014 at 4:43 pm

    In WP, it used to be you could designate a picture within a post as the featured image. This did not produce a duplication of the image (usually now top right thumbnail) on the blog post. With one of the upgrades (not too long ago), I started having problems with any imagine showing up when posting to FB, Google+ et. al. without a second step declaring a feature image. Often I only have one image in a post. Is there any way to designate a feature image for sharing without having it show up as a thumbnail on the blog post (but instead, later as a larger imagine within the blog text)? I’m using the Headway theme, by the way, but don’t imagine that matters. Thanks for any help you can provide!

    Reply
    • WPBeginner Support says:
      Feb 21, 2014 at 5:48 pm

      You can use the first attachment in your post as the post thumbnail or featured image. Check out our guide on how to set a default featured image, particularly the second section ‘Adding the First Post Image as the Default Fallback’ might be helpful.

      Reply
  28. Gary Neal Hansen says:
    Feb 19, 2014 at 11:53 am

    Thank you! You answered my question before I had to go searching for it. Very helpful.

    Reply

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