Change desktop background and colors

Select the Start button, then select Settings > Personalization to choose a picture worthy of gracing your desktop background, and to change the accent color for Start, the taskbar, and other items. The preview window gives you a sneak peek of your changes as you make them.

In Background, select a picture or solid color, or create a slideshow of pictures.

In Colors, let Windows pull an accent color from your background, or choose your own color adventure.

After you’ve selected an accent color, scroll down to decide where you want to see the color show up, and whether it looks better in a dark or light setting.

The above screen shows the Dark setting.

Get Windows 10 themes in the Microsoft Store

Personalize your Windows 10 device with themes—a combination of pictures, colors, and sounds—from the Microsoft Store.

How to Change Your Desktop Background in Windows 10

By Ilyse Liffreing 30 April 2019

The blue Windows 10 wallpaper is nice to look at, but it’s more fun to choose the background you want on your laptop. After all, you’re going to be the one staring at the screen all day and don’t want to be peering at a dark blue logo for hours on end. You should also look into changing your icon size, as well as saving the beautiful Windows 10 lock screen images so you have more wallpaper options. For more granular customization, try enabling Dark Mode or Light Mode on Windows 10 and consider changing to these beautiful themes.

With that said, here’s how to change your desktop background in Windows 10.

How to change your desktop background in Windows 10

1. Click on the Windows icon in the lower left of your screen next to the search bar.

2. Click on Settings in the list on the left.

3. Click on Personalization, which is fourth from the bottom on the list.

4. Click on Background. The background page will come up which allows you to preview your background picture and lets you choose from several photos or your own photos for your desktop background.

5. Click on the box underneath Background to choose between a picture, solid color, or slideshow for your background.

6. Underneath Choose your picture, click on one of the options or click Browse to choose one from your computer. Click on whatever photo you want and it will appear as your desktop background.

7. If you don’t like the layout of the photo, you can click on the box underneath. Under Choose a fit, pick between fill, fit, stretch, tile, or center options for your background.

8. Once you’ve made your selections, your Windows 10 background will change automatically, no manual submitting required.

How to change your background on a Windows 10 device using your settings or a shortcut

Windows 10 is an extremely popular operating system, and while the default Windows 10 blue background is alluring in its own right, it can also be considered quite bland.

Fortunately, you have the option to customize the Windows 10 background as you see fit.

Here’s how to do it.

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How to change your background on Windows 10

1. Click the Windows button on the bottom right corner of your screen (alternatively, you can hit the Windows button on your keyboard).

2. Click «Settings» then click on «Personalization.»

3. Then head to «Background» and choose your new background by clicking «Browse» to browse the images on your PC.

4. Choose the photo you want for your new background and it should go live.

How to change your background on Windows 10 with a shortcut

1. If you already know what you want to change your background to, locate the image file on your computer (likely saved in one of your folders or on your desktop).

2. Right-click the photo and click «Set as desktop background.»

Related coverage from How To Do Everything: Tech:

How to turn off the touch screen on certain Windows 10 devices, or turn it back on

How to invert or change the colors on your Windows computer, to make icons and links easier to see

How to set a default printer in Windows 10 so that it’s easier and quicker to print documents

How to change the font size on a Windows 10 computer, to make it easier to read text displayed on your screen

How to change your screensaver on a Windows 10 computer to a custom animation or slideshow

Insider Inc. receives a commission when you buy through our links.

How to change the background in Windows 8 and 8.1’s Start screen

It’s no secret that Windows 8 is unpopular. The same goes for Windows 8.1, a free update for the OS that was released back in April. While you can choose to avoid the Metro UI when using Windows 8, having the ability to change the background of the Start screen could at least make the experience of interacting with Metro less of a headache.

However, changing the Start screen isn’t a process that’s necessarily as straight-forward as it can be. That’s what we’re here for: to make things easier on you!

With this guide, we’ll show you how easy it is to change the background on the Start screen. Most of you may not like poking around in there, but at least you can customize it to your liking so that it’s more pleasing to your eyes whenever you do dive into Metro.

How to change the background in the Windows 8 and 8.1 Start screen

Head over to the Start Screen, if you aren’t there already. If you’re at the classic desktop UI, just press the Windows key on your keyboard, which should take you straight there.

From there, type in “change start.” Click on “Change the background and colors on Start,” which should be the first result that comes up.

Now, a “Personalize” menu will come up in the Metro UI. Here, you can pick from a multitude of images that you can slather the Start screen with. Once you pick one, you can also tweak that image’s by messing with the “Background color” and “Accent color” settings.

Microsoft’s newest operating system has its fair share of problems, and while many issues are related to the confusing new interface, some have deeper roots. Yes, like any new operating system, Windows 8 has bugs. Gasp! Fortunately, Windows 8 shares something else in common with prior version of Windows; a trend towards maturity. Many showstoppers and annoyances now have solutions. We’ve solved many of the common problems you’ll run into: Check out our guide to common Windows 8 problems — and how to fix them.

Update: This article was updated on Sept. 24, 2014 to include an instructional video.

4 ways to change the desktop wallpaper in Windows 10

Some users might not yet have discovered that Microsoft supplies a selection of colorful wallpapers with its operating systems, and thus they never experiment with changing the standard background. We’ve always picked something other than the default background, so, in this article, we’re going to talk about how that’s done in Windows 10. If you want to learn how to change your desktop wallpaper, read on:

1. How to set a picture as desktop wallpaper in Windows 10, using the right-click menu

If you want to set a picture as your desktop background in Windows 10, the fastest way to do it is probably by using the right-click menu. Open File Explorer and browse to the picture that you want to use as your wallpaper. Then, right-click or tap and hold on it, and choose “Set as desktop background” in the menu.

But what if you want to also choose how it fills your desktop or if you don’t want just one image? What if you want to have your own slideshow with multiple images from a folder? Read the rest of this guide to see how you can access more desktop wallpaper customization options.

2. How to set and customize a picture as desktop wallpaper, in Windows 10, using the Settings app

Like most things in Windows 10, you can also change the desktop wallpaper from the Settings app. Right-click or tap and hold on your desktop, and then select Personalization in the contextual menu.

The previous action opens the Settings app and instantly takes you to the Background section from the Personalization settings. This is what you should see:

NOTE: Alternatively, instead of using the desktop right-click menu to get here, you can also simply open the Settings app and navigate to Personalization > Background.

On the right side of the Background page, you can see a small preview of what your desktop looks like using the current settings, followed by a series of settings that change its looks. The first of them is called Background. Click or tap on the Background drop-down and select the Picture option.

Right under the Background setting, there’s a section called “Choose your picture,” in which Windows 10 shows you a series of pictures that you can quickly set as your desktop wallpaper. If you want to use one of them, click or tap on it.

If you want to use a different picture than the ones shown in the list, click or tap on the Browse button. Then navigate through your Windows 10 PC to select the picture you prefer to use as wallpaper.

When you find the one you want, select it and click or tap on the “Choose picture” button.

As soon as you do that, Windows 10 sets the new picture as your desktop background. You can also see how your desktop looks in the Background preview.

What about customizing how the picture fills your screen space? Scroll down on the right side of the Background window. Then click or tap on the “Choose a fit” drop-down list and select the picture positioning that you prefer: Fill, Fit, Stretch, Tile, Center, Span.

Experimentation is the best way to decide which of these options works best. Here’s what happens:

• Fill enlarges or reduces your image so that your desktop space is filled. The images are either stretched or cropped to make this happen.
• Fit makes your images as large as possible to fit in the available space. They are neither distorted nor cropped.
• Stretch either stretches or squashes your image to the same dimensions as your screen. If your monitor size doesn’t match the size of the image well, this can look really ugly.
• Tile puts your image on the screen multiple times, filling up the space, but it may or may not fit the images into the space.
• Center puts your image in the center of the screen. You may have one small image in the center of a big blank space, or you may have just the center part of a big image.
• Span makes the image span on all your displays, if you have more than one installed on your computer or device.

If it turns out that your image does not fill the screen properly, you can click on “Change background color*”*, and find a color that coordinates with your image to fill up the rest of the screen.

3. How to set a slideshow with multiple desktop wallpapers, in Windows 10

If you want to use more than one picture as wallpapers in Windows 10, open the Settings app and go Personalization > Background. Then, click or tap on the Background drop-down and select Slideshow from the list.

In the next section, called “Choose albums for your slideshow,” click or tap on Browse.

Navigate to select the folder that has the images you want to be used on your desktop. When you find it, select it and click or tap on “Choose this folder.”

Windows 10 changes the desktop background right away, starting to play a slideshow with pictures from the folder you chose. Note that you can only use one folder. If no folder on your computer has the images you want, you have to create a folder with images selected just for this purpose.

By default, the images you’ve chosen become a slideshow that changes at whatever time interval you wish. Use the “Change picture every” list and choose the time span you want. If you want the images to play in random order, click or tap on Shuffle also.

Also, if you want to adjust the position of the wallpapers on your desktop, follow the same steps as we’ve shown you for setting a picture as desktop background. Essentially, all you have to do is to click or tap on the “Choose a fit” drop-down list and select the option you prefer: Fill, Fit, Stretch, Tile, Center, Span.

4. How to change the desktop wallpaper in Windows 10, by setting a new Theme

Microsoft also puts together collections of backgrounds, window colors, sounds, and screensavers into what they’ve called themes. Choosing one of those is a great way to get started with customizing your desktop. Each theme has a selection of wallpapers to choose from. You can keep just one, or let them play like a slideshow.

If you want your desktop background to be set by a theme you like, here’s how to do it. Open the Settings app and navigate to Personalization. Then, select Themes on the left side of the window.

Scroll down to see which themes are available on your PC or device and click or tap on a theme that appeals to you. When you do that, Windows 10 changes your wallpapers, the screen colors, sounds, and the mouse cursors to those included in that theme.

TIP: You can find the images used as wallpapers by the default Windows 10 themes in the “C:WindowsWeb” folder on your PC. For more details, check this article: The location of Windows 10 wallpapers for the Desktop and the Lock Screen.

Play around with the available choices as much as you like. If none of the built-in themes pleases you, Microsoft has an outstanding collection that you can access by clicking or tapping on the “Get more themes in Microsoft Store” link found at the beginning of the Themes list.

Following the “Get more themes in Microsoft Store” link takes you to the Microsoft Store app, where you can download any theme you like.

And that’s pretty much everything you can do to personalize the way your desktop background looks.

What’s your favorite desktop wallpaper for Windows 10?

There’s no reason to use the same old boring wallpaper that everyone else has. Changing it to suit your own preferences is quick and straightforward, and it’s easy to change back to what you had if none of the new images or themes is to your liking. Experiment, and if you come across a good collection of public domain images that would make good wallpapers, please share it in the comments.