How to set a wallpaper on iPhone, Android, Windows and Mac

You found a wallpaper you like and downloaded it. Now it needs to end up behind your icons, ideally without being cropped in a strange place or blown up until it looks soft. The steps are slightly different on every system, so this guide walks through each one and ends with the most common fixes.

iPhone and iPad

1. Save the image to Photos. On waaallpaper.com, tap Download, then open the file and choose Save Image.
2. Open the Photos app and find the wallpaper.
3. Tap the Share button, scroll down and choose Use as Wallpaper.
4. Pinch and drag to position it. Tap Add, then choose Set as Wallpaper Pair to use it on both the Lock Screen and Home Screen, or Customize Home Screen to treat them separately.

You can also start from the Lock Screen: touch and hold it, tap the plus button, and pick Photos. This is the better route if you want the clock to overlap the image with the depth effect, which works best with wallpapers that have a clear subject and an empty area at the top.

Android

1. Download the wallpaper and open it in your Gallery or Google Photos app.
2. Tap the three-dot menu and choose Use as, or Set as wallpaper.
3. Pick Home screen, Lock screen, or both, adjust the crop, and confirm.

On most phones you can also touch and hold an empty area of the home screen and choose Wallpaper and style. Menu names vary between manufacturers, but the option is always somewhere in the home screen settings.

Windows 11 and Windows 10

1. Download the wallpaper to a folder you will keep, such as Pictures. If you delete the file later, Windows may revert to the default background.
2. Right-click the image file and choose Set as desktop background. That is the quickest way.
3. For more control, open Settings, then Personalization, then Background, and click Browse photos.
4. Use the Choose a fit for your desktop image menu and set it to Fill. This keeps the proportions and avoids black bars.

Mac

1. Download the wallpaper and keep it somewhere permanent, for example a Wallpapers folder in Pictures.
2. Right-click the image in Finder and choose Set Desktop Picture.
3. Or open System Settings, then Wallpaper, and add the image or a whole folder of images.
4. If you use several displays, the Wallpaper settings let you pick a different image for each one.

Why does my wallpaper look cropped or zoomed?

Phones and computers rarely have the same shape as the image. A 16:9 desktop wallpaper on a 16:10 laptop loses a little at the sides, and a tall phone screen crops a wide image heavily. A few things help:

• Download the desktop version for computers and the phone version for phones. Every design on Waaallpaper is made in both shapes for this reason.
• On iPhone, turn off Perspective Zoom when positioning the image. Otherwise iOS enlarges it slightly so it can move with the phone.
• On Windows, use Fill rather than Stretch. Stretch changes the proportions and distorts the image.
• Always download the largest size available. Your device scales a big image down cleanly, but it cannot add detail to a small one.

TipNot sure which size to download? The wallpaper resolution guide explains how to find your screen size in a few seconds.