How to Change Wallpaper on Android

The default wallpaper or background image on your Android smartphone or tablet is probably pretty decent, and most manufacturers release devices with a good selection of different wallpapers. However, if you want to change your homescreen wallpaper to something more appealing and suited towards your own taste, here’s how to change the wallpaper on Android.

Devices like the Galaxy S5 or Nexus 6 have big full HD displays, and they’re capable of showing some pretty images, neat photos of friends and family, not to mention the wide array of Live Wallpapers available for Android users.

Read: How to Change Your Galaxy S5 Wallpaper

The first thing you see every time you use and enjoy your Android phone or tablet is the lock or homescreen, so naturally it’s completely customizable, even if you don’t notice the setting right away. Below is a quick tutorial explaining how to easily change the wallpaper (and find good wallpapers) on Android for beginners.

We understand this is a fairly common feature that many smartphones owners do on a weekly basis or quite often, but not everyone is familiar with Android, or how Android’s software works. As a result, beginners or first-time smartphone owners looking to change the wallpaper to a picture of their kids or a beautiful beach will want to read on for the quick instructions.

Part of the excitement of getting a new phone is setting it up the way you’d like, even if that can be a bit daunting for beginners. As a result, the easy to understand steps below will have you finding and changing that wallpaper on Android in no time.

Instructions

We’re using a stock Android 5.0.1 Lollipop powered Nexus 6 here, but the steps are generally the same for all Android devices. Tap and hold anywhere on your homescreen that there isn’t an app or a weather widget, and the screen will zoom out to a customize mode. From here you can rearrange icons, change what screen is the main screen when you hit the home button, but you can also change your wallpaper.

Simply tap and hold as mentioned above, then select “Wallpapers” on the bottom left. Tap that and you’ll get an option to change the homescreen, lockscreen, or both with Samsung devices, or just the homescreen wallpaper for most other Android devices. I like to mix it up, but to each his own. Mine changes every few weeks, but I’m constantly going back to my Packers HD wallpaper.

As you can see above we’ve long pressed the homescreen, selected wallpapers, and now in the image below we are in the selection area. From here you can choose from the pre-installed wallpaper options, or pick an image from your device. This takes you to the gallery where you can select an image you’ve taken of your kids or animals, or the downloads folder where you’ve saved HD wallpapers from popular apps like Zedge. I have a lot of different images specifically for backgrounds.

There are tons of different apps available from the Google Play Store users can download if they’d like to find custom wallpapers, or even live wallpapers that move with the display. Zedge is one of the most popular apps full of beautiful wallpapers, ringtones, and tons of other customization for your smartphone. It’s been used for years, and has one of the biggest and best selections to choose from.

Read: How to Create Custom Ringtones on Android

Premium Wallpapers HD is another excellent option, especially considering most Android phones these days have full 1080p HD displays, or even 2k screens like the LG G3, Note 4, or Nexus 6. You’ll want HD wallpapers to keep things looking good.

I tend to use my own images or wallpapers from a folder I’ve collected over the years, but if you’re new to Android or a smartphone these are a few good places to start. Enjoy!