How to get Previous Next Post Title, Thumbnail and links
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How to get Previous / Next Post Title, Thumbnail and links

This post explains how to get Previous Next Posts titles, thumbnail and url links separately in the single.php page.

This was a little tricky situation when i was working on a new WordPress Theme that needed to display the thumbnail of the previous and next post as well as the post titles and url links. I found some tutorials online which worked, however i noticed that when i get to the last post or first post, the code returned an error like “notice: trying to get property of non-object in”

//Get Previous Post Thumbnail and link
$prevPost = get_previous_post();
$prevThumbnail = get_the_post_thumbnail( $prevPost->ID );
previous_post_link( '%link', $prevThumbnail );

//Get The Next Post Thumbnail and link
$nextPost = get_next_post(); 
$nextThumbnail = get_the_post_thumbnail( $nextPost->ID ); 
next_post_link( '%link', $nextThumbnail );

The above code worked but returned the below error each time the last or first post in the blog is reached. Moreover, it was not exactly what i was looking for.

notice trying to get property of non-object in - get Previous Next Posts Thumbnail and link

After thorough practising and searching i finally found the perfect solution which enabled me to get the thumbnail and URL separately.

The code below was perfect for exactly what i was working on, getting the previous post and next post thumbnail url as well as the clickable url and the post titles.

//Get the thumnail url of the previous and next post
$prevThumb = get_the_post_thumbnail_url( get_previous_post(), 'thumbnail-size' );
$nextThumb = get_the_post_thumbnail_url( get_next_post(), 'thumbnail-size' );

//Get the links to the Previous and Next Post
$previous_link_url = get_permalink( get_previous_post() );
$next_link_url = get_permalink( get_next_post() );

//Get the title of the previous post and next post
$prevTitle = get_the_title( get_previous_post() );
$nextTitle = get_the_title( get_next_post() );

The screenshot image is exactly what i was aiming for and the code above worked perfectly for that purpose.

How to get Previous Next Posts Thumbnail and links

I hope this solves someone else’s problem. Please leave comments below if you have other solutions that works better and want to share.

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