Recent Posts Widget With Thumbnails

List the most recent posts with post titles, thumbnails, excerpts, authors, categories, dates and more!

Although the plugin is built only for widget areas users reported that it works in Elementor and works in Oxygen. Whether it runs in other page builders is unknown. Please let me know in which page builder you were able to use the plugin successfully.

The plugin does not collect any personal data, so it is ready for EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) compliance.

Lightweight, simple and effective

No huge widget with hundreds of options. g. thumbnails, excerpts and assigned categories.

And it provides more options to build custom-taylored posts lists.

The thumbnails will be built from the featured image of a post or of the first image in the post content. If there is neither a featured image nor a content image then you can define a default thumbnail.

You can set the width and height of the thumbnails in the list. The thumbnails appear left-aligned to the post titles in left-to-right languages. In right-to-left languages they appear right-aligned.

Custom Post Type

If you want to list custom post types with the featured image, please check out our plugin Ultimate Post List Pro.

Demo

You want to test Recent Posts Widget With Thumbnails before installing on your site? Try it out on your individual and free playground site and click here.

What users wrote

• “Displaying recent posts in the sidebar, is a core feature for my website and this plugin solves this requirement perfectly. But what i value most is, that although free, the service reacts fast and competent. Thanks!” in the reviews by HSeldon on October 10, 2026

• “It’s a great plugin; I use it on several of my websites to display a list of recent posts, and the best part is that it doesn’t just show text—it includes a post preview and a direct link to the post itself.” in the reviews by marjuanm on September 18, 2026

• “This plugin performs a simple task but one that I find to be invaluable.” in the reviews by funkster on July 1, 2025

• “I just want to say thank you for developing such a good plugin.” in the reviews by modelaid on July 3, 2024

• “Excellent plugin!” in the reviews by mystnick on April 18, 2023

• “… one of the dynamic and smart, yet admin and user optimized widget plugins …” in How to Add Widgets and Start Using Them in WordPress Website? by SKT Posts Themes on September 3, 2020

• “بهترین افزونه های نمایش آخرین نوشته ها در وردپرس” in ابزارک آخرین نوشته وردپرس by Ghodsi on December 16, 2019

• “Another good all around widget, suitable for most projects” in Free WordPress recent posts widget – Which one is the best? on December 3, 2019

• “In just a few clicks, your website will look considerably more established and professional.” in 3 Best WordPress Thumbnail Plugins to Manage Images Perfectly by HubSpot Staff on October 29, 2019

• The best of the recent posts widgets in the reviews by noddemix on June 13, 2019

• Number 8 in 14 Plugins para Otimizar seu Site by Ideias Dig on November 8, 2018

• “Truly EXCELLENT Plugin!” in the reviews by dnuttal on October 11, 2018

• “Easier than making an egg, seriously.” in the reviews by djackofall on October 2, 2017

• “This plugin is INCREDIBLE” in the reviews by lucio7 on August 25, 2017

• Widgets Users Will Love in 10 Ultra-Useful Free WordPress Widget Plugins by Eric Karkovack on June 16, 2017

• listed in 20 WordPress Plugins that Steals Attention to Engage Visitors of Your Site by WP Team Support on March 6, 2017

• Number 1 in 8 essential WordPress widgets to supercharge your website by Rafay Ansari on January 31, 2017

• “Excellent (after trying a few)!” in the reviews by giorgissimo on January 6, 2017

What users filmed

Some users published video tutorials on YouTube:

• Recent Posts Widget With Thumbnails Setup Tutorial – WordPress Lesson and Tip by Making a Website on April 17, 2016

Options you can set

• Title of the widget

• Number of listed posts

• Open post links in new windows

• Different options for post order and sorting

• Hide the current post in list

• Show only sticky posts

• Hide sticky posts

• Keep sticky posts on top of the list if not hidden

• Hide post title

• Maximum length of post title

• Show post author name

• Label for the author names

• Show post categories

• Show post category names as links to their archives

• Label for categories

• Show post date

• Show post excerpt

• Show number of comments

• Excerpt length

• Signs after excerpt

• Ignore post excerpt field as excerpt source (builds excerpts only from the post content)

• Ignore post content as excerpt source (builds excerpts only from the excerpt fields)

• Show posts of selected categories (or of all categories)

• Show post thumbnail (featured image)

• Registered thumbnail dimensions

• Thumbnail width in px

• Thumbnail height in px

• Keep the aspect ratio of thumbnails

• Try to take the first post image as thumbnail

• Only use the first post image as thumbnail

• Use default thumbnail if no thumbnail is available

• Always use default thumbnail

• Default thumbnail URL

• Alternative text of the default thumbnail

• Omit all alternative texts of the thumbnails for a better accessibility

• Print slugs of post categories in class attribute of LI elements

• Print inline CSS instead of creating a CSS file

• No CSS generation at all

Useful hints for developers: Supported Hooks

The plugin considers the output of actions hooked on:

• rpwwt_widget_posts_args

• passed argument: the query arguments as an array

• expected return value: an array of query arguments

• widget_title

• passed arguments:

• the widget title as a string

• the widget settings as an array

• the widget base ID as a string

• expected return value: a string

• rpwwt_excerpt_length

• passed argument: the maximum number of characters for the post excerpt as an integer

• expected return value: an integer

• rpwwt_excerpt_more

• passed argument: the string to append after the post excerpt

• expected return value: a string

• rpwwt_the_excerpt

• passed arguments:

• the content of the post excerpt field as a string

• the post object

• expected return value: a string

• the_excerpt

• passed argument: the post excerpt as a string

• expected return value: a string

• rpwwt_categories

• passed argument: the category list of each post as a string

• expected return value: a string

• rpwwt_list_cats

• passed arguments:

• the category name as a string

• the category as an array

• expected return value: a string

Useful hints for developers: Available CSS Selectors

To design the list and its items, you can use these CSS selectors:

rpwwt-post-excerpt-more: the "more" text following the excerpt. rpwwt-post-comments-number: the number of comments

Languages

The user interface is available in several languages.

org.

Please help to translate into more languages, or you can re-work on the current translations if you think it’s needed.

If you have done your translation, please leave a comment in the plugin’s support forum. I’ll take care of the review and approval.