Clickable Featured Image

Make featured images clickable. Lightbox on posts, links on archives. Zero config.

What It Does

Makes your featured images clickable:

• On single posts/pages: Clicks open the full-size image in a lightbox
• On archives/loops: Clicks go to the post

Simple, automatic, no settings to configure.

Why?

Featured images in WordPress are not clickable by default. Visitors expect to click images. This plugin fixes that with zero configuration.

Installation

1. Download from Releases
2. Upload via WordPress Admin → Plugins → Add New → Upload Plugin
3. Activate

Done. No settings, just works.

Features

• Wraps featured images in appropriate links
• Uses BaguetteBox for lightbox (if available)
• Prevents nested link issues
• Works with any theme using post_thumbnail_html filter
• Preserves image captions for lightbox

How It Works

The plugin hooks into WordPress's post_thumbnail_html filter:

• is_singular() = true → Links to full-size image (lightbox)
• is_singular() = false → Links to post permalink

Skips images already wrapped in links to prevent HTML issues.

Requirements

• WordPress 5.0+
• For lightbox: BaguetteBox (optional, theme must provide)

Changelog

1.0.3

• Fixed: No longer breaks archive page links when theme already wraps featured images
• Fixed: Added proper URL escaping for security
• Tested compatibility with WordPress 6.9

1.0.2

• Fixed syntax error that caused parse error

1.0.1

• Updated stable tag and function names to follow WordPress.org guidelines

1.0

• Initial release

License

GPL-2.0+

Author

Devenia - We've been doing SEO and web development since 1993.

Links

• Plugin Page
• WordPress.org