How to Change the Wallpaper on Your Computer or Phone

Changing the wallpaper, or background on your computer, is an easy way to quickly personalize your user experience.

Each major operating system has a different procudure for changing the wallpaper. Use the instructions below to learn how to make nearly any image your wallpaper, whether you have a Windows, Mac, or Linux computer, or would like to know how to change the wallpaper on your phone.

In Windows, one of the easiest ways to set a picture as the desktop wallpaper is to save it to your computer and then open it so that you can see the image. From there, right-click or tap-and-hold it to choose either Set as > Set as background or, in older versions of Windows, Set as desktop background.

You also see the Set as desktop background option when you right-click (or tap-and-hold) the picture file in Explorer; you don't even have to open the picture to set it as the desktop background.

Another way to change the desktop wallpaper in Windows is to open the Personalize option on the desktop (called Properties in Windows XP). To do this, tap-and-hold or right-click an empty area on the desktop, pick that option from the menu, and then choose a new desktop background image from that area of the settings.

You can also decide if you want the photo to fit, stretch, or fill the screen, or even for it to be tiled, centered, or spanned across multiple screens.

Some versions of Windows have additional options here, like automatically changing the desktop wallpaper after so-many seconds, which comes in handy if you don't want to settle with just one background.

Windows, of course, isn't the only operating system that can have its desktop wallpaper customized. Below are some instructions for other devices including how to change it on a wide variety of mobile phones.

macOS & Linux

Mac users can simply right-click a photo and choose Use Image as Desktop Picture. This can be done with photos online or ones saved to your computer.

Another way to change the desktop image on a Mac is to right-click a blank area on the desktop and choose the Change Desktop Background... option. If you use this method, you can also choose some other wallpapers and have all of them cycled through on a schedule.

If you're using a Linux OS, such as Ubuntu, right-click the photo saved to your computer and pick the Set as Wallpaper option from the menu. You can also do this with the image open. Another option is to right-click the desktop and go to Change Desktop Background.

iOS, Android & BlackBerry

One way to change the wallpaper on your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch is to first save the image to your phone and then open the Photos app to view it. With the image now open, use the more button on the bottom of the screen to select Use as Wallpaper, and then choose Set to pick whether to use it on your home screen and/or lock screen background.

Android users can see this Android Central quick guide for changing the wallpaper. Like iOS devices, there are plenty of free ways to get hundreds of Android wallpapers, such as AndroidWalls.

For BlackBerrys, see How to Change Home Screen, Backgrounds via PCWorld.