How to set a live photo as your lock screen

Personalizing your smartphone wallpaper is an effective way of cementing your smartphone’s home screen as an integral part of your life. An attractive static home screen wallpaper background can make your handset experience more positive, upbeat, and exciting to use. Live wallpaper — which moves like a GIF as you tap and hold — makes your Android or iPhone user experience even more interesting. Some smartphones come with built-in live wallpapers, but it takes just a few minutes to make your own custom live wallpaper from any video you have. Think of how inspiring it would be to watch that hummingbird you filmed flitting its wings whenever you launch your phone.

Table of Contents Show

How to create a live wallpaper on an iPhone
Your live wallpaper is ready
How to create live wallpaper on Android
Add a new wallpaper for your Lock Screen or Home Screen
Change your wallpaper from the Lock Screen
Customize a Lock Screen wallpaper with filters, widgets, and styles
Rotate multiple photos as your Lock Screen wallpaper
How do you put a live photo as your lock screen?
How do you make your lock screen picture live on iPhone?
Why cant I set a live photo as my lock screen?
How do I set a live wallpaper as my background?

Contents

How to create a live wallpaper on an iPhone
Your live wallpaper is ready
How to create live wallpaper on Android

Sound tempting? Here, we’ll explain how to make live wallpapers for iPhone and Android. We’ll show you how to do this natively on your iPhone without needing to download live wallpaper apps. We will also cover how to do this with third-party apps on Android — the only way to accomplish this on Android smartphones.

How to create a live wallpaper on an iPhone

If you have an iPhone 6S or later models, you can make a live wallpaper on iPhone natively, without having to download an app. This is because the iPhone 6S and later models (not including the first-generation iPhone SE) allow you to take Live Photos and also enable 3D or Haptic Touch. Live Photos are very short snippets of video that allow you to edit and choose the perfect frame for your photo. However, they can also serve as live wallpaper. Here’s how to do it in iOS 13 and iOS 14.

Step 1: Go to Settings > Wallpaper

Step 2: Tap Choose a New Wallpaper. Scroll down and tap Live Photos

Step 3: Select a photo. Make sure you have Live Photo: On activated.

Step 4: Tap Set. Choose either Set Lock Screen or Set Both. Set Home Screen is not critical since the wallpaper won’t move on the Home screen.

Your live wallpaper is ready

Once you’ve done this, you’ll have a live wallpaper that animates on the Lock screen when you tap and hold the image. You can also use several iOS apps to save a GIF or video as a Live Photo, which you’ll then be able to set as a live wallpaper. For example, IntoLive is a popular iOS app that can convert your videos into Live Photos, as can Giphy.

How to create live wallpaper on Android

Android doesn’t offer built-in live wallpapers like iOS, but you can access similar functionality via a third-party live wallpaper app. Google Play offers a variety of different apps for this. A few of the most popular include Idutchsolutions’ Video Live Wallpaper, GIF Live Wallpaper, and Walloop’s Live Wallpapers HD & Backgrounds 4k/3D.

Other apps will even automate the process for you, making and setting new live wallpapers as often as you want. We love Muzei Live Wallpaper because it will give you a new live wallpaper featuring well-known artwork every day. Meanwhile, Forest Live Wallpaper provides you with forest-themed live wallpapers.

To create your own live wallpaper from a video on your phone, try using Video Live Wallpaper. Here’s how:

Step 1: Open the app, then tap Gallery. Pick the video you want to use to make a live wallpaper.

Step 2: Choose the settings you like for the live wallpaper. There’s an option to Play Audio, which probably isn’t the best idea if you want to save battery or be discreet. You can loop the video so it will play nonstop. Choose Play Video Screen to have your live wallpaper going even if you have an app open.

Step 3: Once you’ve chosen your desired settings, click Set Live Wallpaper.

That’s it. While there are plenty of similar live wallpaper apps out there, Video Live Wallpaper is worth checking out. However, if you’re not quite sure what you want yet, you can give a few different apps a try and explore your creativity.

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Want to change the wallpaper on your iPhone? You can choose a suggested wallpaper or one of your own photos.

Add a new wallpaper for your Lock Screen or Home Screen

In the Settings app, tap Wallpaper.
Tap Add New Wallpaper.
Tap Photos, People, or Photo Shuffle to choose your own photo. You can also select a wallpaper from a category like Weather & Astronomy, Emoji, Collections, or Color.
If you want, you can customize your wallpaper further. Then tap Add.

Change your wallpaper from the Lock Screen

Make sure that you previously set up Face ID on your iPhone. To change your wallpaper from the Lock Screen, Face ID must clearly see your eyes and the areas around them.
On the Lock Screen, touch and hold your Lock Screen to open your wallpaper gallery.
To select a wallpaper you already created, swipe left and right. To add a new wallpaper, tap the Add button
.

From the Lock Screen wallpaper options, you can also tap the Focus button to link a Focus to a specific wallpaper, customize existing wallpapers, or swipe up on a wallpaper and tap to delete it.

If you can't use Face ID to change your Lock Screen, touch and hold your Lock Screen until the Customize button appears. If the Customize button doesn’t appear, touch and hold the Lock Screen again, then enter your passcode.

Customize a Lock Screen wallpaper with filters, widgets, and styles

In the Settings app, tap Wallpaper.
Under the preview of your Lock Screen, tap Customize.
Tap Customize Current Wallpaper or Add New Wallpaper and select a wallpaper.
Before you tap Done on the wallpaper, make your customizations.

To choose a font and text color, tap on the time.
To add or remove widgets — like Calendar, Clock, Weather, Fitness, or Reminders — tap on the boxes above or below the time.
To apply photo styles — like Black & White, Duotone, or Color Wash — swipe left or right.
To crop and move your photo, pinch and drag your photo.
To select wallpaper options, tap the More button. Perspective Zoom moves the wallpaper as you tilt your screen. Depth Effect enables layering with the subject of your photo.*

Lock Screen wallpaper customization is available in iOS 16 and later.

* You can't use Depth Effect on wallpapers with widgets.

Rotate multiple photos as your Lock Screen wallpaper

In the Settings app, tap Wallpaper.
Tap Add New Wallpaper.
Select Photo Shuffle from the top row of options.
On the Photo Shuffle screen, set a frequency (On Tap, On Lock, Hourly, or Daily). Then choose a set of photos that will shuffle as you use your iPhone throughout the day.
Tap Done.

Published Date: November 16, 2022

How do you put a live photo as your lock screen?

How to make a live wallpaper.

Go into your Settings app..

Choose Wallpaper. Go into the wallpaper section of your settings. ... .

Tap Choose a New Wallpaper. Tap "Choose a New Wallpaper." ... .

Choose a live photo to use. ... .

Tap Set, and then choose Set Lock Screen, Set Home Screen, or Set Both for your new wallpaper..

How do you make your lock screen picture live on iPhone?

You can play the Live Photo on your Lock Screen, but not on your Home Screen..

Go to Settings > Wallpaper > Choose a New Wallpaper..

Do one of the following: Tap Live, then choose a Live Photo. ... .

Tap Set, then choose Set Lock Screen or Set Both..

Why cant I set a live photo as my lock screen?

The live wallpaper feature requires the use of 3D touch. Only devices newer than the 6S have this feature, but other iPhone and iPad, iPod models, etc. are unable to use the Live wallpaper feature on the lock screen.

How do I set a live wallpaper as my background?

Use VLC Media Player for Live Wallpapers One of the less commonly known ways to set live wallpaper on Windows 10 is using the free VLC media player. To do this, launch the video in the player. Then select Video from the menu, and select Set as Wallpaper. This will put the video in full-screen mode.