Post Block is adding any image in post as featured image when none is set

[User]

Hey there!

I’m currently testing out the plugin via the free version.

Something I noticed is that when using the Blog Posts block, if you have no featured image set on a post, the block will pull the first image found in the post and use that as the featured image when doing Layout: Full post in the block’s settings.

Is there anyway to disable that?

I basically wanted the newsletter to show a post’s title, date, full content, and the FI *only* if there was one. Which 100% works when you just have a post with text and no FI set.

However, the posts I’m having this issue with have a thumbnail gallery (standard WP block) and no FI set and it’s pulling the very first image in the gallery as the FI.
The other one I tested, just has a image inside the post lower down after some text content and again no FI set and it’s doing it there too.

I really don’t want to have to use like a small transparent png for the FI in those cases to bypass this. Is there maybe a setting I’m missing?

[Stefano]

Hi, the plugin does not pull the first gallery image, unless the constant

NEWSLETTER_USE_POST_GALLERY

is defined in the wp-config.php of your site OR you have a plugin autowiring the featured images when missing.

[User]

So I took a look at my wp-config and that wasn’t listed there. It’s also not a plugin since it’s a bare bones test site with just TNP activated. I’m also just using the 2025 theme that comes with WP installations. Could it be the theme then?

[Stefano]

Hi, my fault. The Posts block uses a different image extraction function; I need to fix it to respect the NEWSLETTER_USE_POST_GALLERY or have an option to select the desired behavior.
On Monday I can work on it.

[User]

Thank you so much! I know it’s probably a very niche situation when using the posts block, but I really appreciate you looking into it Stefano. Have a great weekend!

[Stefano]

Hi, on version 9.2.4, in the Newsletter/Newsletters/Settings (where one can add the custom CSS to newsletters), you should see two option to disable the featured image extraction from the gallery and the post content.

[User]

Hey Stefano! I just updated the plugin and unticked those new settings. Then I re-added the post block to my draft newsletter and it’s working perfectly! Thanks again for taking the time to look into this and also making the adjustments.

[Author]

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