The featured image widgets are WordPress plugins that enables you to display your latest podcast from a given post category in any widgetized area of your WordPress site. More and more WordPress themes give you options to use featured images on your archive pages. Here, in this post I have compiled a list of some of the best free wordpress featured image widgets.
While compiling this list, it’s always a possibility that I missed some other great resources. Feel free to share it with us. If you like our art collection, so check out these other posts will interest you too: Best Mobile WordPress Plugins, WordPress Directory and Listings Themes, Free WordPress Portfolio Plugins and Free Blogging WordPress Themes.
1. Ultimate Posts Widget
The ultimate widget for displaying posts, custom post types or sticky posts with an array of options to customize the display. Designed for both the average user and developer, Ultimate Posts Widgets aims to provide flexibility and ease of use for displaying any kinds of posts within your widget areas.

2. Quick Featured Images
The plugin Quick Featured Images helps you bulk managing featured images, define automatic default featured image and saves your time.

3. WP-CMS Post Control
Post Control from WordPress CMS Modifications gives you complete control over your write options for every user level/role. It not only allows you to hide unwanted items like custom fields, trackbacks, revisions etc.

4. Instant Featured Image
This plugin solves this problem by adding a new button alongside the “Insert into post” button in the media manager modal. When clicked, this button will insert your selected media and then, if you have selected an image, set that image as the post’s featured image.

5. Dynamic Featured Image
Dynamically adds multiple featured image or multiple post thumbnail functionality to your page, posts and custom post types. This plugin provides you an interface to add any number of featured image as you want without writing a single code.

6. Genesis Custom Headers
Add custom headers to each page/post/custom post type. Header options include: featured image, custom image, slideshows, HTML, scripts, and more.

7. Multiple Post Thumbnails
Adds multiple post thumbnails to a post type. If you’ve ever wanted more than one Featured Image on a post, this plugin is for you.

8. WordPress Auto Featured Image
This plugin provides you an easy way to set a default thumbnail image for your posts, pages or custom post types. You can select an image from your local machine or media library.

9. Super Post
This plugin gives you all the controls for any post queries, for any post type and any other extended options for displaying your very important post, recent, popular sticky, or related posts.

10. Video Thumbnails
Video Thumbnails makes it easy to automatically display video thumbnails in your template. When you publish a post, this plugin will find the first video embedded and retrieve a thumbnail for you.

11. Featured Image Thumbnail Grid
This plugin gives you access to two simple shortcodes that display posts and bookmark thumbnails in a grid. The plugin uses the featured image thumbnail if one exists. If one does not exist, the title will be displayed instead.

12. Manual Image Crop
Simply click on the “Crop” link next to any image in your media library. The “lightbox” style interface will be brought up and you are ready to go. Whole cropping process is really intuitive and simple.

13. Custom Post Widget
The Custom Post Widget allows you to display the contents of a specific custom post in a widget. Even though you could use the text widget that comes with the default WordPress install.
