How to Bulk Edit Featured Images in WordPress

Ever completed a website redesign only to realize your old featured images stick out like a sore thumb? Going back to change them one by one can feel like an endless, mind-numbing task.

After managing thousands of articles here at WPBeginner, we know how crucial a consistent visual style is for your brand. Manually updating images across hundreds of posts just isn’t practical when you’re busy growing your site.

Thankfully, you don’t have to waste hours on this. There’s a much faster way to add, replace, or even remove featured images across your entire site all at once.

In this guide, we’ll walk you through the simple steps to bulk edit featured images in WordPress, saving you a ton of time and effort.

Here is a quick look at what we will cover in this guide.

1. Why You Might Need to Bulk Edit Featured Images in WordPress
2. How to Bulk Edit Featured Images in WordPress
3. How to Set Multiple Images Randomly as Featured Images
4. How to Bulk Remove Featured Images in WordPress
5. Bonus: Do Basic Image Editing in WordPress
6. Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
7. Additional Resources on WordPress Image Management

Why You Might Need to Bulk Edit Featured Images in WordPress

Featured images, also known as post thumbnails, are an important part of many websites.

Almost all modern WordPress themes come with built-in support for featured images and display them across different areas of your WordPress website, including your blog archives.

As an important part of your WordPress blog, you’ll want to make sure your featured images look good and represent your brand.

With that in mind, at some point, you may need to bulk edit your featured images in WordPress. For example, you might install a new WordPress theme and decide to design new featured images that better complement your new theme.

You can change the featured image for an individual page or post in the standard WordPress editor. However, changing the featured image for lots of different pages and posts can be frustrating and time-consuming.

Having said that, let’s see how you can bulk-edit featured images in WordPress.

How to Bulk Edit Featured Images in WordPress

The easiest way to bulk edit featured images in WordPress is by using the Quick Featured Images plugin.

This plugin makes it easy to change every single featured image across your website. It also has detailed filters to change the featured images for specific categories, tags, post types, and more.

Before you start using the plugin, just be aware that this plugin doesn’t allow you to undo your bulk edits. This can cause problems if you change your featured images and are unhappy with the results.

With this in mind, it’s a good idea to back up your WordPress website before using this plugin. If you don’t already have a backup solution, then there are several great WordPress backup plugins that allow you to automatically back up your website.

Remember, restoring a backup will revert your entire site (including posts, pages, and settings) to the exact moment the backup was created. It’s the ultimate undo button! 👍

After creating a backup, you’ll need to install and activate the Quick Featured Images plugin. If you need help, then please see our guide on how to install a WordPress plugin.

Upon activation, go to Featured Images » Overview in the left-hand menu. On this screen, click on the following link: ‘Bulk set, replace, and remove featured images for existing posts.’

This screen allows you to bulk edit your featured images in a few different ways.

Your first option is the ‘Set the selected image as a new featured image’ radio button.

This setting finds all posts and pages without a featured image. You can then choose a new featured image and apply it to all of these pages and posts.

Another option is ‘Replace featured images by the selected image.’ This allows you to replace any existing featured images with a new image.

Next up is ‘Remove the selected image as featured image.’ This lets you choose a specific image, and then remove that featured image wherever it appears on your website. This is perfect for removing an outdated featured image, such as an image that features your site’s old logo.

After selecting one of these radio buttons, click on the Choose Image button.

You can now choose the image that you want to use in the bulk edit. You can either select an image from your WordPress media library or upload a new file.

Once you’ve done that, scroll to the bottom of the screen and click on the ‘Next’ button.

On this screen, you’ll be able to configure how WordPress performs the bulk edit.

The options you see may vary depending on whether you’re adding, changing, or removing a featured image. For example, if you choose the ‘Set the selected image as new featured image’ radio button, then you can select whether to override all existing featured images or ignore them.

To select which posts your bulk changes will apply to, scroll to the ‘Add a filter’ section.

By default, Quick Featured Images will apply its bulk edit to all pages and posts across all of your site’s categories and tags.

If you don’t want to bulk edit every page and post, then you can create filters. These filters let you bulk edit featured images that meet specific criteria.

For example, imagine you just rebranded your ‘Business Tips’ category with a new visual style. You could use the ‘Category Filter’ to select only the posts in ‘Business Tips.’

This way, you can replace all their featured images at once without touching the images in your other categories like ‘Marketing’ or ‘News.’ 😉

You can check more than one box. For example, you might check the ‘Post Type Filter’ and ‘Tag Filter’ boxes if you want to bulk edit posts that have a specific tag.

After checking one or more boxes, go ahead and click on the ‘Next’ button.

You will now see some settings that you can use to create your filter. For example, if you check the ‘Post Type Filter’ box, then you can choose between the ‘Posts’ or ‘Pages’ boxes.

If you check either the ‘Category Filter’ or ‘Tag Filter’ box, then you’ll have access to a dropdown menu.

You can open this dropdown and then choose the category or tag where you want to make the bulk edit.

When you’re happy with how your filter is set up, scroll to the bottom of the screen.

You can then go ahead and click on the ‘Preview filtering’ button.

The Quick Featured Images plugin will now show a preview of all the pages and posts that will be affected by the bulk edit.

If you’re happy with the preview, then you can go ahead and click on the ‘Apply’ button.

Quick Featured Images will now bulk edit all of the relevant featured images across your WordPress website.

How to Set Multiple Images Randomly as Featured Images

When you bulk edit featured images in WordPress, you can sometimes end up using the same featured image for lots of different posts. These duplicate images can make your website look boring and repetitive.

With that in mind, you may want to set your featured images from a pre-selected group of images. You can use the Quick Featured Images plugin to select a pool of different images from your WordPress media library.

The plugin will then intelligently assign one image from your selected pool to each post that matches your filter, ensuring you get a nice variety across your site.

In this way, you can bulk edit your images without creating lots of duplicate featured images.

To set your featured images at random, go to Featured Images » Overview and again click on ‘Bulk set, replace and remove featured images for existing posts’.

Once you’re here, click on ‘Set multiple images randomly as featured images.’

You can then click on the ‘Choose Images’ button to open the WordPress media library.

In the WordPress media library that opens, you can now select all the images you want to use. To select multiple images quickly, click your first image, hold down the Shift key on your keyboard, and then click your last image. This will select all the images in between.

Once you’ve done that, click on the ‘Choose Images’ button. Then, scroll to the bottom of the screen and click on ‘Next.’

By default, Quick Featured Images will apply these images to all your WordPress pages and posts at random.

Do you just want to use these images for certain content types, categories, or tags? Then, you can create a filter by following the same process described above.

After adding a filter, Quick Featured Images will show a preview of all the pages and posts that it plans to update. You can check the thumbnail to see which image the plugin has randomly assigned to each page or post.

If you’re happy with the preview, go ahead and click on ‘Apply.’ Quick Featured Images will now add new images to your pages and posts.

How to Bulk Remove Featured Images in WordPress

Sometimes, you may prefer not to use featured images on your website. For example, you might be trying to speed up your WordPress performance, or you may be using a theme that simply doesn’t look good with featured images.

You can use Quick Featured Images to easily remove all the featured images from your pages and posts.

You can also use filters to remove featured images from pages, posts, or content with a particular tag or category.

To bulk remove featured images in WordPress, select the radio button option labeled ‘Remove all featured images.’ You can then go ahead and click on ‘Next.’

Now, you can apply filters by following the instructions above.

Once you’ve created one or more filters, go ahead and click on the ‘Next’ button.

As always, the plugin will show a preview of all the pages and posts that it will change as part of this bulk edit. Since you’re deleting the featured image, it will show ‘No image set’ in the ‘Future Featured Image’ column rather than a thumbnail preview.

If you’re happy to go ahead and remove the featured image for these pages and posts, then just click on the ‘Apply’ button.

Bonus: Do Basic Image Editing in WordPress

Once you have bulk-edited featured images on your website, you can also use some default WordPress settings to edit other images in the media library.

To do this, go to Media » Library from your WordPress dashboard and click on the image you want to edit. When the ‘Attachment Details’ window pops up, simply click the ‘Edit Image’ button right below the image preview to open the editor.

You will now be taken to a new screen where you have to click the ‘Edit Image’ button.

After that, you can crop, scale, or rotate the image according to your liking. Once you are done, just click the ‘Save Edits’ and ‘Update’ buttons to store your settings.

For more information, see our tutorial on how to do basic image editing in WordPress.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

Here are some of the most common questions we get about bulk editing featured images in WordPress.

Can I undo bulk edits made with the Quick Featured Images plugin?

No, the plugin does not have an undo feature. This is why we strongly recommend creating a full backup of your website before you start making changes, so you can restore it if needed.

Is it possible to bulk edit featured images without a plugin in WordPress?

WordPress does not have a built-in feature for this task. While it’s technically possible with custom code, using a dedicated plugin is the safest and easiest method for most people.

What is the best way to create a website backup before making bulk changes?

The most reliable method is to use a WordPress backup plugin. We use Duplicator on some of our own projects because it allows us to create a complete backup that can be easily restored if something goes wrong.

Will changing my featured images affect my site’s SEO?

Changing the images themselves won’t negatively impact your SEO. However, for best results, you should make sure your new images have descriptive file names and alt text to help search engines understand your content.

Additional Resources on WordPress Image Management

Now that you know how to bulk edit featured images, you may want to check out these other guides for managing images on your WordPress site:

• How to Do Basic Image Editing in WordPress
• How to Optimize Images for Web Performance
• A Beginner’s Guide to Image SEO
• How to Use AI to Generate Images in WordPress
• How to Create an Image Gallery in WordPress
• Best File Upload Plugins for WordPress

We hope this article helped you learn how to bulk edit featured images in WordPress. You may also want to see our guide on how to use AI to generate images in WordPress and our top picks for the best WordPress file upload plugins.

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