There is a very cool plugin called Autoset Featured Image by Arefly. I like it because it let me getting lazy. I just post an article and put in a picture tag, the plugin then sweetly update the featured image field. Awesome.

However I did some mods to it for my personal use.

What Autoset Featured Image plugin standard will do?

– Auto update the featured image from images in entry
– Auto create the featured image from external url image

What I need it to do better for me?

– I find that the featured image from external url is not recognized by themes. I think because it is using different field, while normally any themes will read from standard featured image field. So I need it to copy the external image, make it local and attach to that particular post, and make the featured image out of it.

– Then I need it to be able to read thumbnail from Youtube videos, make it local to particular post and set the featured image.

Final result, it works like I want it to do. Check the sample video above.

Credit and thanks to original author, Arefly.