How To Have 2 Different Backgrounds On 2 Monitors

Setting a unique background on each of your multiple monitors was a elementary trick in Windows eight, only the menu is buried to the point of being invisible in Windows 10. Only it'southward however there if you know where to look.

New: Set a Wallpaper in the Settings App

Since we originally published this article, Microsoft added a better solution to Windows x.

To change desktop backgrounds individually for each monitor, head to Settings > Personalization > Background. Under Choose Your Film, right-click a background image and select "Set for monitor 1," "Set for monitor 2," or whichever other monitor you want to use it on.

To add boosted images to this list, click "Scan" and select a wallpaper yous want to employ. Windows will set it every bit your default on all desktops. Correct-click the wallpaper icons and choose which monitor you want to use each on.

Setting different wallpapers for different monitors on Windows 10.

When to Use This Fob (and When to Use Third Party Tools)

First and foremost, nosotros want to brand the all-time apply of your time–both in reading this tutorial and downwards the road when you're using our advice to mix up your wallpapers. With that in mind, consider the following two scenarios.

Scenario one: You infrequently change your desktop wallpaper, simply you would actually similar to have a different background on each monitor. In this scenario, the solution in this article (which is quick and uses Windows' congenital-in setting) is a perfect one as it's light on system resources.

Scenario two: if yous want to use multiple and unlike wallpapers on each of your monitors, and you desire a high caste of control over that, then the standard wallpaper options in Windows 10 probably won't cut it. If you're a wallpaper junkie or actually need fine-tooth control over the backgrounds, and so we strongly recommend the venerable (and still quite useful) John's Background Switcher (free) or the Swiss Army Knife of multimonitor management, DisplayFusion (the features relevant to wallpaper direction are bachelor in the free version).

If you find yourself in scenario i, though, let's take a await at how to set a custom wallpaper on each monitor in Windows 10. (And if y'all're in a customize-all-the-things mood, be sure to bank check out how to customize your Windows 10 login and lock screen, as well.)

RELATED: How to Change the Login Screen Groundwork on Windows 10

How to Select Unique Wallpapers for Dissimilar Monitors in Windows 10

There are two ways two get nearly selecting multiple monitor wallpapers in Windows 10–neither specially intuitive. For each method, we'll employ a scattering ofGame of Thrones wallpapers to demonstrate. For frame of reference, here's what our electric current desktop looks like, with the default Windows ten wallpaper repeated on each of our three monitors.

It'due south nice wallpaper, as far as stock wallpaper goes, simply a tad boring. Let's mix it upwardly.

The Easy, but Imperfect Method: Modify Your Wallpaper With the Windows File Explorer

The start method isn't intuitive, considering information technology relies on you selecting the images in Windows' File Explorerand knowing how Windows will handle your multiple image selection. Select your images in the File Explorer, using Ctrl or Shift to select multiple images. Right click on the image you wish to assign to your primary monitor while the images you want to use are still selected. (Note, this is primary as in the monitor Windows thinks of as the chief monitor per the Settings > System > Display menu in the Control Panel, not necessarily the monitor you consider the primary/important one.) In the right-click context carte du jour, select "Fix equally desktop background".

Windows volition set those images as your desktop wallpapers. Below, you tin meet that the epitome we clicked on (the carmine wallpaper with the House Lannister crest) is on the middle monitor. The ii other wallpapers, for House Stark and Firm Baratheon, are more or less randomly placed on the secondary and 3rd monitor.

This is a especially inelegant solution because you lot take no control over where the images on the non-primary monitors will be placed. It also has two other irritating shortcomings: if the images are not the verbal resolution of your monitor, they won't piece of work, and they will randomly rotate positions every xxx minutes.

With those shortcomings in mind, know that nosotros've shown you this method entirely in the proper noun of thoroughness and education and not because we retrieve yous'll prefer it. Allow's look at a much ameliorate method.

The Complicated, but Powerful Method: Change Your Wallpaper With the Personalization Menu

Update: The command here no longer brings up the traditional Command Panel interface, but you can now use the Settings > Personalization > Groundwork window to attain the same thing.

When Windows viii came out, one of the first things multi-monitor users noticed is that at that place were a bunch of new menu options, including a very easy to use multi-monitor wallpaper choice tool built right into the Personalizations menu in the Control Panel. Inexplicably, that option vanished in Windows 10.

You lot won't find it in Settings > Personalization > Backgrounds where it used to exist–there you can only fix a single image as your background regardless of how many monitors you have. Further, yous won't notice it where information technology used to reside in Windows viii, in Command Panel > Appearance and Personalization > Personalization where at that place used to be a direct link to it. Strangely, even though no menus directly link to it anymore, the menu itself is but hanging out there waiting for y'all.

To admission information technology, press Windows+R on your keyboard to phone call up the Run dialog box and enter the following text:

command /proper name Microsoft.Personalization /page pageWallpaper

Printing Enter and, past the power of command-line tricks, you'll run into the old wallpaper selection card.

If we click on the "Scan" push, we can scan to the folder with ourGame of Thrones wallpapers (or nosotros can use the dropdown menu to navigate to existing wallpaper locations like the Windows Pictures library).

Once you've loaded the directory you wish to work with, here'southward where yous'll finally get the per-monitor command you've been looking for. Deselect the images (Windows automatically checks all of them when you lot load the directory) so select a unmarried paradigm. Correct-click on it and select the monitor yous wish to assign it to (again, visit Settings > Organisation > Brandish if you don't know which monitor is which number).

Repeat the procedure for whatever wallpaper you lot wish to utilise for each monitor. The end result? Exactly the wallpaper nosotros desire on each monitor:

If you want to farther mix things upwardly, you can ever select multiple images then use the "Picture position" drop-down menu to brand adjustments to how the image is displayed and the "Change moving-picture show every" menu to tweak how often the option of photos you lot accept are changed up.

It'southward not the near sophisticated system in the world (see some of the third political party options we highlighted in the introduction for more advanced features) merely it gets the task washed.

Despite the menu vanishing from the Control Panel, a piffling control line-fu returns information technology, and you can easily customize your wallpapers across multiple monitors to your center's content.