How To Change Background Picture On Windows 10

Setting a unique background on each of your multiple monitors was a simple trick in Windows eight, but the menu is buried to the bespeak of being invisible in Windows 10. But information technology'southward still there if you lot know where to look.

New: Set up a Wallpaper in the Settings App

Since nosotros originally published this article, Microsoft added a better solution to Windows 10.

To modify desktop backgrounds individually for each monitor, head to Settings > Personalization > Groundwork. Under Choose Your Picture, right-click a background image and select "Prepare for monitor 1," "Ready for monitor 2," or whichever other monitor you want to use it on.

To add boosted images to this list, click "Browse" and select a wallpaper yous want to employ. Windows will prepare it as your default on all desktops. Right-click the wallpaper icons and cull which monitor you want to employ each on.

Setting different wallpapers for different monitors on Windows 10.

When to Use This Trick (and When to Use 3rd Party Tools)

First and foremost, we want to brand the all-time use of your fourth dimension–both in reading this tutorial and down the road when you're using our advice to mix up your wallpapers. With that in mind, consider the post-obit ii scenarios.

Scenario one: You infrequently modify your desktop wallpaper, just you would actually similar to have a different background on each monitor. In this scenario, the solution in this article (which is quick and uses Windows' built-in setting) is a perfect one as it'south low-cal on organization resources.

Scenario two: if you want to apply multiple and dissimilar wallpapers on each of your monitors, and y'all want a loftier degree of control over that, so the standard wallpaper options in Windows x probably won't cut information technology. If yous're a wallpaper junkie or actually need fine-molar command over the backgrounds, then we strongly recommend the venerable (and still quite useful) John's Groundwork Switcher (free) or the Swiss Army Knife of multimonitor management, DisplayFusion (the features relevant to wallpaper direction are bachelor in the gratis version).

If you lot find yourself in scenario one, though, let's take a await at how to fix a custom wallpaper on each monitor in Windows 10. (And if yous're in a customize-all-the-things mood, be certain to check out how to customize your Windows 10 login and lock screen, too.)

RELATED: How to Change the Login Screen Background on Windows ten

How to Select Unique Wallpapers for Different Monitors in Windows 10

There are two ways two go about selecting multiple monitor wallpapers in Windows 10–neither particularly intuitive. For each method, nosotros'll apply a handful ofGame of Thrones wallpapers to demonstrate. For frame of reference, here's what our current desktop looks like, with the default Windows 10 wallpaper repeated on each of our 3 monitors.

It'southward nice wallpaper, as far as stock wallpaper goes, merely a tad ho-hum. Let's mix it upward.

The Easy, just Imperfect Method: Change Your Wallpaper With the Windows File Explorer

The first method isn't intuitive, because it relies on you selecting the images in Windows' File Explorerand knowing how Windows will handle your multiple epitome selection. Select your images in the File Explorer, using Ctrl or Shift to select multiple images. Right click on the paradigm yous wish to assign to your primary monitor while the images you desire to use are even so selected. (Note, this is master as in the monitor Windows thinks of as the primary monitor per the Settings > System > Display carte du jour in the Command Console, non necessarily the monitor you consider the primary/important i.) In the correct-click context menu, select "Set as desktop background".

Windows will prepare those images as your desktop wallpapers. Beneath, you tin can meet that the image we clicked on (the red wallpaper with the Business firm Lannister crest) is on the center monitor. The two other wallpapers, for House Stark and Business firm Baratheon, are more or less randomly placed on the secondary and tertiary monitor.

This is a particularly inelegant solution because you lot have no command over where the images on the non-master monitors will be placed. It also has ii other irritating shortcomings: if the images are not the exact resolution of your monitor, they won't work, and they will randomly rotate positions every thirty minutes.

With those shortcomings in mind, know that we've shown yous this method entirely in the name of thoroughness and education and not because nosotros recall you lot'll prefer information technology. Let'south expect at a much better method.

The Complicated, merely Powerful Method: Change Your Wallpaper With the Personalization Menu

Update: The command here no longer brings upwardly the traditional Command Console interface, but you lot can now use the Settings > Personalization > Groundwork window to accomplish the same thing.

When Windows 8 came out, one of the first things multi-monitor users noticed is that at that place were a bunch of new menu options, including a very piece of cake to utilise multi-monitor wallpaper selection tool built right into the Personalizations carte in the Control Console. Inexplicably, that selection vanished in Windows 10.

You won't discover it in Settings > Personalization > Backgrounds where it used to be–there you can simply gear up a single prototype as your background regardless of how many monitors you have. Further, you lot won't notice it where information technology used to reside in Windows eight, in Command Console > Appearance and Personalization > Personalization where there used to be a direct link to it. Strangely, even though no menus directly link to it anymore, the carte itself is just hanging out there waiting for you.

To access it, press Windows+R on your keyboard to call up the Run dialog box and enter the post-obit text:

control /name Microsoft.Personalization /page pageWallpaper

Printing Enter and, by the ability of command-line tricks, you'll come across the old wallpaper option carte du jour.

If we click on the "Scan" push, we tin can scan to the folder with ourGame of Thrones wallpapers (or nosotros can use the dropdown carte du jour to navigate to existing wallpaper locations like the Windows Pictures library).

Once you've loaded the directory you wish to work with, hither's where yous'll finally get the per-monitor control yous've been looking for. Deselect the images (Windows automatically checks all of them when you load the directory) and then select a single prototype. Right-click on it and select the monitor yous wish to assign it to (again, visit Settings > System > Display if you don't know which monitor is which number).

Repeat the process for whatsoever wallpaper yous wish to use for each monitor. The end effect? Exactly the wallpaper we want on each monitor:

If you desire to further mix things upwards, you tin always select multiple images and then use the "Picture position" drop-downward carte to make adjustments to how the image is displayed and the "Alter movie every" menu to tweak how frequently the selection of photos y'all have are changed up.

Information technology's non the most sophisticated organization in the world (see some of the third party options we highlighted in the introduction for more advanced features) only it gets the job done.

Despite the menu vanishing from the Control Panel, a piddling command line-fu returns it, and you tin easily customize your wallpapers beyond multiple monitors to your heart'southward content.