$objectManager = \Magento\Framework\App\ObjectManager::getInstance();
$product = $objectManager->create('Magento\Catalog\Model\Product')->load($productId); // Load product object
$mediaAttribute = array ('thumbnail','small_image','image');
$mediaDir = $objectManager->get('Magento\Framework\App\Filesystem\DirectoryList')->getPath('media');// Im Magento 2
$mediaDir = Mage::getBaseDir('media');// In Magento 1
//Case 1: When image files are alredy in your server
$fpath = 'product/images/';// path to your file
$count = 0;
$imgArray = array('image1.png','image2.png','image3.png','image4.png');
foreach ($imgArray as $image){
$imgUrl = _save_image( $fpath.$image,$objectManager,$mediaDir );// copies the file from your local storage to your-magento-root-path/pub/media
if ($count == 0){
$product->addImageToMediaGallery( $imgUrl , $mediaAttribute, true, false );
}else {
$product->addImageToMediaGallery( $imgUrl , null, true, false );
}
$count++;
}
function _save_image($img,$objectManager,$mediaDir) {
$imageFilename = basename($img);
$image_type = substr(strrchr($imageFilename,"."),1); //find the image extension
$filename = md5($img . strtotime('now')).'.'.$image_type; //give a new name, you can modify as per your requirement
if (!file_exists($mediaDir)) mkdir($mediaDir, 0777, true);
else chmod($mediaDir, 0777);
$filepath = $mediaDir . '/'. $filename; //path for temp storage folder: pub/media
file_put_contents($filepath, file_get_contents(trim($img))); //store the image from external url to the temp storage folder
return $filepath;
}
In your case set only 'thumbnail' in $mediaAttribute array.Hence array will be $mediaAttribute = array ('thumbnail');