Add Featured Image Column to Posts List in WordPress Admin

Want to know how to display the featured image next to each post and page when viewing the posts or pages list in the WordPress admin?

You can use a plugin for this, but it is unnecessary. Simply add the following code to your theme’s functions.php file.

function posts_columns($defaults){
    $defaults['sv_post_thumbs'] = __('Image');
    return $defaults;
}

function posts_custom_columns($column_name, $id){
    if($column_name === 'sv_post_thumbs'){
        the_post_thumbnail( 'thumbnail' );
    }
}

add_filter('manage_posts_columns', 'posts_columns', 5);
add_action('manage_posts_custom_column', 'posts_custom_columns', 5, 2);

The result will look something like this:

This uses WordPress hooks to add admin columns. Learn more in WordPress Hooks Explained.