KAutoThumbnail turns article images into floating thumbnails

Its job is to create a thumbnail from an article’s intro image, or from the first image in the article body, and insert it as a floating image in the text.

This need arises because Joomla can store intro and full-article images and display them through its article and category layouts, while positioning is normally left to the template, CSS, or a template override. Editors can also place and size images manually. Core does not, by itself, generate a separate cropped or fitted thumbnail and inject it into article text. According to the listing, KAutoThumbnail goes beyond that by generating the file with GD, selecting left, right, alternating, or no alignment, and adding dimensions and loading="lazy" to page images.

It is aimed at editorial or magazine-style sites with many articles, especially teams wanting consistent thumbnail treatment without editing each article or building a custom content plugin. A site that already has a suitable template override, uses manually placed images, or does not show article thumbnails has little reason to install it.

KAutoThumbnail is a free download from Luca, listed under Articles, Images, Content Construction, and the directory records five other extensions from the developer. Before installing, check the Joomla 5.x or 6.x and PHP 8.1+ requirements, including the GD extension. The listing does not answer how large the generated cache can become, how processing affects image-heavy pages, or what support and update history look like; it also has no reviews.

Listed on the Joomla Extensions Directory.