The quickest way to change your iPhone background

Open Settings, tap Wallpaper, then tap Customize. Choose a category — Photos, Stills, Collections, or Weather — select an image, and tap Set. You'll see options to set it as your lock screen, home screen, or both. Tap the one you want, then confirm. The whole process takes about 30 seconds.

If you want to use a photo you already took, the Photos category shows your camera roll. If you want something built into iOS, Collections has Apple's pre-made wallpapers organized by theme. Either way, you preview the image before you commit to it, so you can see exactly how it will look on your phone.

Key Takeaways

  • You can set different images for your lock screen and home screen, or use the same image for both.
  • The Photos category pulls from your camera roll, while Collections contains wallpapers that come with iOS.
  • You can preview any wallpaper before you set it, so you'll see exactly how it looks on your phone.
  • If you want to use a photo from the internet, save it to your camera roll first, then choose it from Photos.

Setting a photo from your camera roll as your background

Open the Settings app and scroll down to Wallpaper. Tap it, then tap Customize. Select Photos at the top of the screen. Your camera roll appears as a grid. Tap any photo you want to use. You'll see a preview of how it looks on your lock screen — scroll down to see how it looks on your home screen too.

Once you've chosen a photo, tap Set at the bottom right. A menu appears with three options: Set Lock Screen, Set Home Screen, or Set Both. Pick whichever you want. The wallpaper updates immediately. If you change your mind later, you can repeat these steps and pick a different photo.

Using Apple's built-in wallpapers

If you don't want to use your own photos, iOS comes with wallpapers you can use instead. Open Settings, tap Wallpaper, then tap Customize. Select Collections instead of Photos. You'll see categories like Nature, Flowers, Astronomy, and Gradients. Tap any category to see the wallpapers inside it.

Tap a wallpaper to preview it. Some wallpapers have options — for example, the Weather wallpaper shows your current conditions and updates throughout the day. After you preview it, tap Set and choose whether to set it on your lock screen, home screen, or both. These wallpapers are stored on your phone, so they don't use your internet connection.

Saving images from the web to use as wallpaper

If you find a wallpaper online and want to use it, you need to save it to your camera roll first. Open Safari or any app with the image, press and hold the image, then tap Save Image. It goes into your Photos app automatically. Then follow the steps above to set it as your wallpaper — open Settings, tap Wallpaper, tap Customize, select Photos, and choose the image you just saved.

Some websites have wallpaper collections designed specifically for phones. These often come in the right size already, so they look better than random images. If you're looking for new wallpapers, searching "iPhone wallpaper" in any search engine gives you thousands of options to choose from.

Why your wallpaper might look different than you expected

iPhone wallpapers get cropped and zoomed to fit your screen, so the part of the image you see might not be the part you expected. When you preview a wallpaper in Settings, you see exactly how it will look — the preview shows you the cropped version, not the full image. If the preview doesn't look right, try a different image or a different part of your photo.

Your home screen wallpaper also gets covered by app icons, so busy images with a lot of detail can be hard to see. Simple images, solid colors, and images with the main subject in the center tend to work better. If you set a photo as your home screen wallpaper and can barely see it under your apps, switching to a simpler image usually helps.

Setting different wallpapers for lock screen and home screen

You don't have to use the same wallpaper on both screens. When you tap Set after choosing an image, you get three options: Set Lock Screen, Set Home Screen, or Set Both. If you want different images on each screen, set one image on your lock screen first, then repeat the process and set a different image on your home screen.

This is useful if you want a detailed photo on your lock screen (where nothing covers it) and a simpler image on your home screen (where app icons sit on top). You can also use this to match your wallpaper to different times of day — a bright image for daytime and a darker one for night, for example.

Frequently Asked Questions

Can I use a live photo as my wallpaper?

Yes. When you select a live photo from your camera roll, iOS automatically converts it to a still image for your wallpaper. The live photo feature doesn't work on wallpapers, so you'll see a single frame instead of the video. You can choose which frame appears by adjusting the preview before you set it.

What if I want to go back to the default Apple wallpaper?

Open Settings, tap Wallpaper, tap Customize, and select Collections. Choose Default Wallpapers at the top of the list. These are the wallpapers that come with iOS. Tap any one and set it the same way you would any other wallpaper.

Does changing my wallpaper use a lot of storage?

No. Wallpapers take up very little space on your phone. Even if you save dozens of photos to use as wallpapers, they won't noticeably affect how much storage you have left. The only time storage matters is if you're saving high-resolution images from the web that you don't actually need.

Can I schedule my wallpaper to change at certain times?

iOS doesn't have a built-in feature to automatically change your wallpaper on a schedule. You have to change it manually each time. Some third-party apps claim to do this, but they require you to give them access to your photos and settings, which most people don't need to do.