How to set wallpapers in Android

WhistleOut Staff Writer

Updated 02 August 2013

Wallpapers are the best and easiest way to make a phone that looks like everyone else’s phone take on a unique life of its own.

Adding a custom wallpaper or lock screen

Adding a custom wallpaper or lock screen is easy. Jump in to your gallery and select any image. Find the menu option that says “set as” and select it then select wallpaper or lock screen. Resize how you see fit and apply.

Grabbing a pic from the social media, email or browser can be done in two ways:

Sometimes a tap and hold will bring up a menu with the “set as” option. From here follow the previous steps.

Other times you will need to tap and hold before selecting “save as” or “download”. The picture should then show up in your Gallery in the Downloads folder. Proceed from here as if it were any other picture.

There are three kinds of Android wallpapers: single-screen, multi-screen and live. Want to create your own wallpapers? Find out how to take a screenshot on an Android phone, then set that image as your background!

Single

Single and multi both offer still images. Single provides a static image over which icons and widgets scroll as home screens change.

Multi

Multi provides the illusion of depth by displaying an image that is wider than a single screen, but scrolls across more slowly than the icons do. A multi-screen image may only be three screens wide, but cover a full 7 screens thanks to slower scrolling. Not all manufacturer User Interfaces support multi-screen wallpapers.

Live wallpapers

Live wallpapers are usually single-screen options but with animated visuals. Anything from calm raindrops, to buzzing beams of light, to an animated nature scene are available. Some live wallpapers are even dynamic, such as those that depict rain, sun or clouds depending on weather reports.

Live wallpapers are notorious battery hogs, especially the dynamic ones that rely on live updated information. If you have trouble managing charge then we’d suggest you stick a static image.