Can You Have Different Backgrounds On Dual Monitors

Setting a unique background on each of your multiple monitors was a unproblematic trick in Windows 8, but the carte is cached to the point of being invisible in Windows x. But it's nonetheless there if you know where to wait.

New: Set a Wallpaper in the Settings App

Since nosotros originally published this article, Microsoft added a meliorate solution to Windows 10.

To modify desktop backgrounds individually for each monitor, head to Settings > Personalization > Background. Under Choose Your Movie, correct-click a groundwork image and select "Set for monitor i," "Set for monitor 2," or whichever other monitor you want to use information technology on.

To add together additional images to this listing, click "Browse" and select a wallpaper y'all desire to use. Windows volition set it as your default on all desktops. Right-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 Play tricks (and When to Apply Third Party Tools)

Starting time and foremost, nosotros want to make the all-time use of your time–both in reading this tutorial and down the road when you're using our communication to mix up your wallpapers. With that in listen, consider the following two scenarios.

Scenario one: You infrequently change your desktop wallpaper, but you would really similar to have a different background on each monitor. In this scenario, the solution in this article (which is quick and uses Windows' built-in setting) is a perfect 1 as it'due south lite on system resources.

Scenario two: if you want to employ multiple and different wallpapers on each of your monitors, and you want a high degree of control over that, then the standard wallpaper options in Windows 10 probably won't cutting it. If you're a wallpaper junkie or really demand fine-molar control over the backgrounds, then we strongly recommend the venerable (and even so quite useful) John's Background Switcher (free) or the Swiss Ground forces 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 look at how to set a custom wallpaper on each monitor in Windows 10. (And if you're in a customize-all-the-things mood, be certain to check out how to customize your Windows ten login and lock screen, also.)

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

How to Select Unique Wallpapers for Different Monitors in Windows ten

At that place are 2 ways ii go almost selecting multiple monitor wallpapers in Windows 10–neither particularly intuitive. For each method, we'll use a scattering ofGame of Thrones wallpapers to demonstrate. For frame of reference, hither'due south what our electric current desktop looks similar, with the default Windows x wallpaper repeated on each of our three monitors.

It'south squeamish wallpaper, as far as stock wallpaper goes, simply a tad tedious. Let'southward mix information technology upward.

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

The start method isn't intuitive, because information technology relies on y'all selecting the images in Windows' File Explorerand knowing how Windows volition 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 main monitor while the images you want to use are still selected. (Note, this is primary every bit in the monitor Windows thinks of every bit the primary monitor per the Settings > System > Display menu in the Control Console, not necessarily the monitor you consider the main/of import one.) In the correct-click context menu, select "Set equally desktop background".

Windows will fix those images equally your desktop wallpapers. Below, you lot tin come across that the image we clicked on (the ruddy wallpaper with the Business firm Lannister crest) is on the center monitor. The ii other wallpapers, for House Stark and Firm Baratheon, are more or less randomly placed on the secondary and third monitor.

This is a particularly inelegant solution because you have no control over where the images on the not-principal monitors will be placed. It likewise has two other irritating shortcomings: if the images are not the exact resolution of your monitor, they won't piece of work, and they volition randomly rotate positions every xxx minutes.

With those shortcomings in listen, know that we've shown you this method entirely in the proper name of thoroughness and education and not because we recall you'll prefer it. Let's wait at a much better method.

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

Update: The control hither no longer brings upwards the traditional Command Panel interface, simply you tin can now use the Settings > Personalization > Background window to attain the same thing.

When Windows 8 came out, i of the kickoff things multi-monitor users noticed is that there were a agglomeration of new menu options, including a very piece of cake to apply multi-monitor wallpaper choice tool built right into the Personalizations menu in the Command Panel. Inexplicably, that choice vanished in Windows 10.

You won't detect it in Settings > Personalization > Backgrounds where information technology used to be–at that place yous can only set a single epitome every bit your groundwork regardless of how many monitors you lot have. Further, you won't find it where information technology used to reside in Windows eight, in Control Panel > Appearance and Personalization > Personalization where in that location used to be a direct link to information technology. Strangely, even though no menus directly link to it anymore, the menu itself is only hanging out in that location waiting for you.

To admission it, printing Windows+R on your keyboard to retrieve the Run dialog box and enter the following text:

control /proper name Microsoft.Personalization /page pageWallpaper

Press Enter and, past the power of control-line tricks, you'll encounter the quondam wallpaper option carte.

If we click on the "Browse" button, we tin browse 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 lot've loaded the directory yous wish to work with, hither's where you'll finally get the per-monitor control you've been looking for. Deselect the images (Windows automatically checks all of them when you load the directory) and and then select a single image. Right-click on information technology and select the monitor you wish to assign it to (once more, visit Settings > System > Display if you don't know which monitor is which number).

Repeat the process for any wallpaper you wish to use for each monitor. The end outcome? Exactly the wallpaper we want on each monitor:

If you desire to farther mix things up, yous can always select multiple images and then use the "Picture show position" drib-downwardly menu to make adjustments to how the paradigm is displayed and the "Modify picture every" menu to tweak how often the option of photos you take are changed upwardly.

It'southward not the nearly sophisticated organisation in the world (see some of the third party options we highlighted in the introduction for more advanced features) only information technology gets the job done.

Despite the menu vanishing from the Command Panel, a footling control line-fu returns it, and you lot tin hands customize your wallpapers beyond multiple monitors to your eye'south content.