Where are the default wallpapers stored in Windows 10?
To find background images, you need to follow these steps:
- Go to the Start menu.
- Click on the “Explorer” icon.
3. In the window that opens, in the list (located on the left) we find the icon for the drive C – OS (C:).
4. In the list of folders on drive C, go to the “Windows” directory.
5. In it we find the “Web” folder. This is what we need, as it contains all the standard Windows 10 desktop wallpapers.
The “Web” folder contains three directories:
- 4K;
- Screen;
- Wallpaper.
The first 4K directory contains nine identical drawings in the corporate style of dozens of Hero. They are specially made in various resolutions to ensure high-quality display on various types of screens and monitors.
The “Screen” category is filled with six images that are used by the system as the design of the lock screen.
"Wallpaper" contains three groups of preset image files in different resolutions.
Windows: interesting
For those who didn’t know in the tank - in the latest version of the operating system, in addition to photos and slide shows, you can install automatically changing images on the computer’s lock screen, which (if I’m not mistaken - once a day) are downloaded from the manufacturers’ servers.
Where and how to turn on Windows Spotlight
To begin with, I’ll show you where this whole thing comes into play. Through we go to the Control Panel “Settings” of the system...
...and dive into the “Personalization” section...
There, in the “Lock Screen” item, the periodic change of images described in this article is set...
This “yummy” in Windows 10 has won the universal love of users with its beautiful images and always an unexpected wow effect the next time you start the computer.
Where are Windows Explore images stored?
First, you need to enable the display of hidden folders (items) in the built-in file manager through the “View” menu item in any window...
Next, go to the system drive (usually drive “C”) and click on the “Users” folder. We find there a directory under the username of your computer, where we need a translucent “AppData” folder. Already hidden in it is the “Local” folder in which “Packages” lives. Carefully click on it and look for a folder with a long name “Microsoft.Windows.ContentDeliveryManager_cw5n1h2txyewy”...
Are you tired yet? There are literally a couple of “steps” left - in the “LocalState” folder...
...You will find the “Assets” folder...
...in which ours will be from the lock screen...
Such is the long path to the treasured folder...
Don’t worry, your image previews (thumbnails) are not broken in Explorer - you just need to copy all the files from this folder (for example, to a new folder on your desktop)…
...and rename them individually...
…by giving the extension “.jpg”…
Hallelujah…
Now you can safely launch any image viewer and use it to select the most beautiful masterpieces.
Some images will be in vertical orientation - this is for Windows 10 Mobile, if you are the happy owner of a smartphone with this shell and use one account on several devices.
You will also see square icons for some games and applications from the Windows Store - just ignore them.
A quick way to remove images from Windows Explore
There is another, faster way to remove images from “Windows: Interesting” in Windows 10 - using a special script written by kind people and posted on the network. It doesn’t do anything scary, virus or spyware - it just takes out all the images from “Windows: Interesting” with one click and copies them to your desktop...
...already renamed...
The desktop wallpaper that comes with Windows 10 is very cute. Many users like this wallpaper. Readers asked me where they are stored on disk. If you're interested in finding them and want to use them somewhere else, say in your dual boot operating system like Linux or Windows 7, here's how to find them. Traditionally, wallpapers in Windows are stored in the C:\Windows\Web\Wallpapers folder. To find the default wallpaper in Windows 10, open File Explorer by pressing Win + E on your keyboard. Type or copy and paste the following path into the address bar:
C:\Windows\Web There you will find 3 folders that contain all the default desktop backgrounds for Windows 10 - 4K
,
Screen
, and
Wallpaper
.
The 4K folder contains various default wallpaper sizes known as "hero window" images. These images are used for different screen orientations on supported devices. They are also available in 4K resolution (3840 x 2160).
Folder Screen
- The screen includes default images used to block the screen background.
Note: When the background is enabled, Windows 10 downloads stunning lock screen wallpapers from the Internet automatically. The OS stores them elsewhere. To know more, please refer to the following article: Where to find lock screen images in Windows 10?
Last folder, Wallpaper
, contains default desktop backgrounds. They are located in three folders:
Wallpaper folder
This folder stores images for the built-in “flowers” theme.
Wallpaper folder following
The Windows folder only comes with one background image.
Folder Windows Desktop Wallpaper
Windows 10 OS - this folder contains the default backgrounds that are displayed in the application settings out of the box.
You might be wondering why the folder has the name "web" in its path when the images are not web related. This is all because of the Active Desktop feature in earlier versions of Windows. In Windows 95 we didn't have the ability to use *.jpg images as desktop backgrounds. Later, when Microsoft released Internet Explorer version 4, it brought the Active Desktop feature. Its key feature is the ability to display your favorite web content directly on your desktop. It also had an advanced Explorer with the ability to view folders as web pages. JPEG images can also be used as desktop backgrounds. Therefore, starting from Windows 98, Windows saves all images to a web folder
%userprofile%\appdata\local\Microsoft\Windows\themes
Modern versions of Windows do not have any support for active desktop or web browsing in Explorer, but the folder structure remains the same today. Windows 10 has basically the same wallpaper folder structure and allows you to customize the wallpaper image quality.
In the Windows 10 operating system, the lock screen does not display a dark background, but a colorful picture. You can install or change such an image by knowing where the lock screen pictures for Windows 10 are stored or by activating the “Windows spotlight” function (Windows: interesting). It is she who is responsible for displaying photos on the lock screen.
Windows Spotlight
In addition to the usual background pictures, to ensure the operation of the “Windows: Interesting” function (automatically changes images on the lock screen), additional photographs are placed in the system. How to find them?
- Pressing the Win + R keys simultaneously will open the Run window.
2. In the “Open” field enter the following command:
%USERPROFILE%\AppData\Local\Packages\Microsoft.Windows.ContentDeliveryManager_cw5n1h2txyewy\LocalState\Assets
3. After clicking OK, a window with a list of files will open
9. The drawings need to be copied to some new folder.
Now their format needs to be made usable. If there are few files, they are manually renamed with the addition of the extension - .jpg. For a large number of documents, the name can be changed as follows:
- in the folder with the copied pictures, click the address bar;
- enter the cmd command and press the Enter button;
- A command line will appear in which you need to type the combination: Ren*.* *.jpg;
- press Enter;
Everything is ready to use.
Where are the wallpapers stored?
You need to use the path to go to the Windows image storage folder; this is also suitable (read about ways to open Explorer):
C:\windows\web
There are three folders here: 4K, Screen and Wallpaper. The Screen folder contains images used when locking the screen.
The default Wallpaper folder contains at least three other folders, each folder for each theme, and if there are more themes, the number of folders will also increase. Wallpaper images located in theme folders.
The 4k folder contains essentially the same image of the Windows 10 logo, but in different sizes.
From the article it should be clear where the desktop wallpaper is stored, as well as other images used in the design of Windows 10: themes and lock screens. All these images belong to Microsoft and should only be used for personal use.
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Comments
+24 Victor 12/30/2015 07:47
Where can I get images of the Lock Screen when it automatically changes the image via the Internet and they are always different?
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-7 Alexey 12/30/2015 08:11
You are probably talking about the design theme, so the images are located there, only in the folder with the name of the theme. Agree, why make a theme that will use traffic and computer resources more intensively?
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+6 Dmitry 03/05/2016 06:29
Not a design theme. There is a “Windows: Interesting” mode in the settings. Selects pictures from the Internet.
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+6 GLOVES 03/06/2016 06:29
Well, they use it!!! I don’t know, maybe this is regulated somewhere in the settings - I didn’t look into it! But the fact that sometimes cool pictures are uploaded, and you want to save them, that’s for sure! But they are definitely not in these folders!!! Where can I look for them???
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+8 Oleg 03/08/2016 11:34
Lock screen photos do change periodically over the Internet.
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+19 Alexander 02/26/2016 10:33
I quote Victor:
Where can I get images of the Lock Screen when it automatically changes the image via the Internet and they are always different?
Here: c:\Users\Username\AppData\Local\Packages\M icrosoft.Windows.ContentDeliveryManager_cw5n1h2txy ewy\LocalState\Assets\ (files without extension, but can be opened by any viewer).
Reply Reply with quote Quote +91 Oleg 03/08/2016 11:53
I quote Victor:
Where can I get images of the Lock Screen when it automatically changes the image via the Internet and they are always different?
Windows Spotlight (lock screen theme) uploads them here: %localappdata%\Packages\Microsoft.Windows.ContentDeliveryManager_cw5n1h2txyewy\LocalState\Assets rename to jpg Reply Reply with quote Quote
+68 GLOVES 03/06/2016 06:41
Found! This way!!! C:\Users\Your_UserName\AppData \Local\Packages\Microsoft.Windows.ContentDeliveryManager_cw5n1h2txyewy\LocalState\Assets When you go to the Assets folder, you will see several files. These are the Windows spotlight images, which are downloaded from Microsoft servers. Copy the files to any location convenient for you, for example, to a New folder on the desktop and rename a file, for example, to 1.jpg. This way you can not only see pictures from the lock screen in Windows 10, but also save them for yourself and use .
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+2 Dmitry 08/20/2017 15:18
Gloves forgot to indicate that the AppData folder is initially hidden, you can make it visible in the Explorer options, on the View tab.
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0 profile 10.30.2018 19:21
Need cheap hosting? Try webhosting1st, just $10 for an year.
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-1 Denis Kolbylkin 03.03.2019 21:09
What a Gegiano theme
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How to download standard windows 10 wallpapers
To download system background images to a storage device or other device, you need to go to the desired directory, select the file of interest and, in the standard way (Ctrl+C - copy, Ctrl+V - paste), move it to the desired address. Renamed files for the design of “Windows: Interesting” are easily downloaded to the desired device in the same way.
New versions of standard Microsoft background images can be downloaded from the company's official website. To do this, enter a query into a search engine - Microsoft help.
We go to the official website of the company. Enter the query “wallpaper” in the search bar.
The search engine will display a list of possible choices. We choose the first option – a selection of wallpapers.
On the page that opens, select the pictures you like and download.
How to download pictures from the Windows 10 lock screen
In fact, it is relatively simple and does not require any specific skills. By following very simple instructions, you will definitely succeed!
Press the Win+R
and in the “
Run
” window that opens, enter the following (you can simply copy and paste there:
%LOCALAPPDATA%\Packages\Microsoft.Windows.ContentDeliveryManager_cw5n1h2txyewy\LocalState\Assets
And press " Enter"
"or simply click the "
OK
" button with the mouse.
Here are our pictures. They are without "extension". To avoid breaking anything here, you need to select all the files and copy them to any other directory. For example, create a folder on your desktop called “win10_lockscreen” and copy all these files there.
Now we need to set the extension “ jpg”
“In order not to rename each file separately, we’ll do it in bulk.
After copying, open this folder, CLAMP
SHIFT
button on the keyboard and right-click
(
right
mouse button
) in any free space in the folder.
In the context menu that appears, select “ Open command window
”
In the command line window that opens, enter:
Ren *.* *.jpg
and press " Enter"
»
That's all. Now these files can be easily viewed with photo viewing programs.
Desktop wallpaper quality
One of the frequent complaints from users is the poor quality of wallpaper on their desktop. The reasons for this may be the following:
- The wallpaper resolution does not match your screen resolution. Those. If your monitor has a resolution of 1920x1080, you should use the wallpaper in the same resolution, without using the "Wide", "Stretch", "Fill", "Fit" options in the wallpaper settings settings. The best option is “Mosaic Software”).
- Windows 10 re-encodes wallpapers that were in excellent quality, compressing them into Jpegs in its own way, resulting in poorer quality. This can be bypassed; below is how to do it.
To ensure that when installing wallpapers in Windows 10 they do not lose quality (or lose less significantly), you can change one of the registry parameters that determines the jpeg compression parameters.
- Go to the registry editor (Win+R, enter regedit) and go to the HKEY_CURRENT_USER\ Control Panel\ Desktop
- Right-click on the right side of the Registry Editor and create a new DWORD value named JPEGImportQuality
- Double-click on the newly created parameter and set it to a value from 60 to 100, where 100 is the maximum image quality (without compression).
Close Registry Editor, restart your computer or restart File Explorer, and reinstall your desktop wallpaper so that it appears in good quality.
The second option to use high-quality wallpaper on your desktop is to replace the TranscodedWallpaper
in
C:\Users\username\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Windows\Themes
with your original file.
How to set (change) Windows 10 desktop wallpaper
The first and simplest thing is how to install your picture or image on the desktop. To do this in Windows 10, just right-click on an empty space on the desktop and select the “Personalization” menu item.
In the “Background” section of the personalization settings, select “Photo” (if the choice is not available because the system is not activated, there is information on how to get around this below), and then select a photo from the proposed list, or by clicking on the “Browse” button, set your own image as your desktop wallpaper (which can be stored in any folder on your computer).
Among other settings, wallpaper layout options include Expand, Stretch, Fill, Fit, Tile, and Center. If the photo does not match the resolution or proportions of the screen, you can make the wallpaper look more pleasing using these options, but I recommend just finding a wallpaper that matches the resolution of your screen.
The first problem may await you right there: if everything is not in order with the activation of Windows 10, in the personalization settings you will see a message that “To personalize your computer, you need to activate Windows.”
However, even in this case, you have the opportunity to change the desktop wallpaper:
So, even if your system is not activated, you can still change your desktop wallpaper.
Automatic wallpaper change
Windows 10 supports slide shows on the desktop, i.e. automatic change of wallpaper among those chosen by you. To use this feature, in the personalization options, in the “Background” field, select “Slideshow.”
After this, you can set the following parameters:
- A folder containing the desktop wallpaper that should be used (when selected, it is the folder that is selected, i.e. after clicking “Browse” and entering the folder with images, you will see that it is “Empty”, this is the normal operation of this function in Windows 10, the contained wallpaper will still be shown on the desktop).
- The interval for automatically changing the wallpaper (they can also be changed to the following in the right-click menu on the desktop).
- The order and type of arrangement on the desktop.
Nothing complicated, and for some users who are bored of looking at the same picture all the time, the function may be useful.
