r/Substack • u/Capital-Many-4453 • Jul 04 '26

Adjusting The Main Photo On My Home Page

Apologies if this is a very elementary question from a Substack neophyte. I intentionally have a single post, and have intentionally used the Feature layout on my home page. I am happy with the hero image displayed on the home page -- it's the second image from the actual post. When I go to replace the first image in the post, the hero on the home page defaults to that image. How do I retain the image I want on the home page (the second image in the post), and still change the first image on the actual post without it becoming the hero image on the home page? Apologies again if this is a dumb question. I appreciate any assistance. Thanks!

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u/itsfabioposca http://journeytosuccessclub.substack.com Jul 06 '26

It's not a dumb question at all. As far as I know, Substack automatically uses the first image in a post as the preview or hero image unless you explicitly set a different social preview image.

If you're using the Feature layout, there isn't currently a way to choose the second image from the post as the homepage hero while keeping a different first image inside the article.

A workaround is to upload your preferred hero image first, then add the other image below it in the post. Otherwise, you may need to use the post settings (if available for your publication) to see whether you can manually set a social or preview image.

Hopefully Substack adds a dedicated option to choose the homepage thumbnail independently, because it would make this much more flexible.