Do you want to add a featured image from your YouTube video? Our code snippet adds a metabox to your posts where you can add a youtube video ID to display a thumbnail.

Instructions:

To display a YouTube thumbnail as your featured image, add this code snippet to your theme’s functions.php file or in a site-specific plugin:

Feel free to change this line: youtube_thumb(‘480′,’360′,’0’)

The values in the function are as follows width, height, screenshot. The 0 is the image preview by default 0 should be the first frame but 1,2,3 etc may also work for the video with preview images throughout the clip.

add_action("admin_init", "youtube_init"); add_action('save_post', 'save_youtube_link'); function youtube_init(){ add_meta_box("youtube", "Youtube thumbnail code", "youtube_link", "post", "normal", "high"); } function youtube_link(){ global $post; $custom = get_post_custom($post->ID); $link = $custom["link"][0]; ?> <div class="link_header"> <input name="link" class="form-input-tip" value="<?php echo $link; ?>" /><br /> </div> <div class="yt-thumb"><img src="http://img.youtube.com/vi/<? echo $custom['link'][0]; ?>/0.jpg" width="30" height="30" /></div> <p>Please place id for the youtube file here! This sample URL ID is hilighted in <span class="yt-id">red</span>. After v= and before & symbol if one exists. <br /> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=<span class="yt-id">oHg5SJYRHA0</span>&feature=player_embedded</p><div class="yt-clear"></div> <?php } function save_youtube_link(){ global $post; if (defined('DOING_AUTOSAVE') && DOING_AUTOSAVE) {return $post->ID;} update_post_meta($post->ID, "link", $_POST["link"]); } function youtube_thumb($w,$h,$t){ $custom = get_post_custom($post->ID); return '<img src="http://img.youtube.com/vi/'.$custom['link'][0].'/'.$t.'.jpg" width="'.$w.'" height="'.$h.'" />'; } add_action('admin_head', 'youtube_css'); function youtube_css() { echo' <style type="text/css"> .link_header{margin:0px 5px 0px 0px;} .link_header input{ font-size:13px; color:#666; border:solid 1px #ccc; -moz-border-radius:3px; padding:2px; margin:0px 10px 0px 0px; width:100%; } .yt-clear{clear:both;} .yt-id{color:#ff0000;font-weight:bold;} .yt-thumb{ float:left; margin:6px 6px 0px 0px; border:solid 1px #ccc; } </style> '; }

<? echo youtube_thumb('480','360','0'); ?>

Note: If this is your first time adding code snippets in WordPress, then please refer to our guide on how to properly copy / paste code snippets in WordPress, so you don’t accidentally break your site.

If you liked this code snippet, please consider checking out our other articles on the site like: 62 best free WordPress blog themes or 7 best WordPress contact form plugins.