Thumbnails

Description

WordPress themes need thumbnails in different sizes and they even let the user to change those dimensions.
But WordPress has a problem: it does not regenerates the thumbnails when new sizes are registered.

Thumbnails intercepts the request by themes or plugins to WordPress to get a specific thumbnail, generates it and caches it on disk.
Efficiently, it produces a perfectly cropped image, with the right dimension avoiding unpleasant stretching.

Thumbnails does not modify your blog or your media library. When deactivated the blog returns to its old behavior.

The second important feature is the autoselection of featured image for post which are missing it.
You can choose between the on the fly selection without persist it or, for better performances, to persist it once selected.

Read the Thumbnails official page for detailed information.

Theme developers can find instructions to use it (no code tied to Thumbnails needs to be written!).

Other plugins by Stefano Lissa:

Screen shots

No screenshots are available at this time.

Installation

  1. Put the plug-in folder into [wordpress_dir]/wp-content/plugins/
  2. Go into the WordPress admin interface and activate the plugin
  3. Optional: go to the options page and configure the plugin

FAQ

See the Thumbnails official page.

Reviews

April 2, 2023
Great idea, and can go to the next level to be even more awesome... rather than cropping images (and losing content), keep the largest dimension and provide an option to add a colored background, filling the gap (eg. with black) or transparent. switch the format to WebP, to improve PageSpeed metrics provide an option to turn off all thumbnail generation in the wp-content/uploads folder, and do it with this plugin, per the above, instead. Stop WP core from contaminating the uploads folder with dynamic content.
August 17, 2022
I like this plugin's approach of generating thumbnails when asked. I hope the plugin will be around for a long time. Or if it were included in the core, it would cut down on wasted unused image files on servers around the world. Now if only it would support WebP and responsive images, it would be perfect. Thanks.
March 10, 2018
I re-use my post thumbnail images in various ways, so I like to upload them full size, and I need the software to resize them as needed. This plugin does exactly that for me. It performs its magic transparently and makes my pages a lot lighter. Highly recommended.
September 3, 2016
Just want the doctor ordered! This plugin solved my nagging issue on a custom theme. Thank you for sharing.
Read all 6 reviews

Contributors & Developers

“Thumbnails” is open source software. The following people have contributed to this plugin.

Contributors

“Thumbnails” has been translated into 1 locale. Thank you to the translators for their contributions.

Translate “Thumbnails” into your language.

Interested in development?

Browse the code, check out the SVN repository, or subscribe to the development log by RSS.

Change log

1.1.6

  • Checked compatibility with WP 6.4.1

1.1.5

  • Readme and plugin headers fix for WP 5.8

1.1.4

  • Checked compatibility with WP 5.7

1.1.3

  • Checked compatibility with WP 5.5

1.1.2

  • Added crop options

1.1.1

  • Compatibility check with WP 5.2.4

1.1.0

  • Compatibility changes

1.0.8

  • Fixed a debug notice

1.0.7

  • Added core size processing
  • Improved admin CSS

1.0.6

  • Added featured image persistence option

1.0.5

  • Compatibility checks with WP 4.7
  • Tagged to be translatable on translate.wordpress.org (even you can help!)

1.0.4

  • Fixes to the options panel

1.0.3

  • Compatibility with WP 4.4.2

1.0.2

  • Fixes

1.0.0

  • First public release (but it is working on many blogs since months)