Showing remote images as post thumbnail could be very handy at times to reduce loading time and post images and post simultaneously.
Showing remote images as post thumbnail means you can show any external image on any other site as thumbnail of your post just with the URL of the image, however you need to check for copyrights, if you are using images from any other site which also belongs to you then it is safe to use.
[symple_box style=”boxinfo”] How to Show Remote Images as Post Thumbnail [/symple_box]
You can easily Show remote images as post thumbnail with a plugin called WP Remote Thumbnail, this plugin will allow you to set external/remote images as post thumbnail/featured image.
WP Remote Thumbnail is very light weight WordPress plugin which comes with zero configuration and one click setup. Using this plugin you can easily set any external image as featured image of any post/page or even custom post types.
Once it is installed and activated WP Remote Thumbnail plugin will automatically add a custom metabox to each post type which supports post thumbnail. You just need to copy and paste the url of any image and then paste it into the metabox and click publish/update.
How to Install WP Remote Thumbnail
The installation process for WP Remote Thumbnail plugin is quite simple and easy
- Go to your admin area and select Plugins -> Add new from the menu.
- Search for “WP Remote Thumbnail”.
- Click install.
- Click activate.
- Go to any post/page and add your external images.
Add remote thumbnail url and click publish/update.After adding a remote thumbnail, it will show the image as the featured image or the thumbnail for that post. Conclusion: WP Remote Thumbnail plugin is a very handy tool to set featured image or post thumbnail quickly with just the url of the image and save your server space by not adding the image to your server which will improve the loading time as well.
This maybe not a good option for me. I already have 400 posts and manual editing post just to add that feature image will take ten years. I hope it can generate an auto thumbnails from images stored on external website like Picasa or Flickr.
If you place the image URL correctly, it should work perfectly I believe
I tried this plugin but it appears to upload the remote image to the wordpress media library and then sets the featured image to the uploaded image. I am looking for a way to reference the remote image as a featured image not upload it.