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How to change your desktop wallpaper on Windows 11 and 10

Two ways to do it, the fit that avoids black bars, and the slideshow setting.

The quick way: from File Explorer

1. Open the folder that holds the image (after a download, look in Downloads; unzip the archive first).
2. Right-click the image.
3. Choose Set as desktop background.

From Settings, on Windows 11

1. Open Settings and go to Personalization, then Background.
2. Under Personalize your background, choose Picture.
3. Click Browse photos and pick your image.
4. Under Choose a fit for your desktop image, pick Fill, Fit, Stretch, Tile, Center or Span.

On Windows 10 the path is the same: Settings, Personalization, Background, then Browse.

Which fit to choose

Fill covers the whole screen and trims whatever does not fit. Fit shows the whole picture and adds bars if its shape differs from your screen. Most laptop and monitor screens are 16:9, the same shape as most wallpapers, so Fill changes nothing and simply works.

A slideshow of several wallpapers

1. Put the wallpapers in one folder.
2. In Settings > Personalization > Background, set Personalize your background to Slideshow.
3. Click Browse and select the folder.
4. Choose how often the picture changes, from every minute to once a day.

Several monitors

In the Background settings, right-click a picture in the recent images row to send it to one monitor only. The Span fit stretches a single picture across all your screens.