Your wallpaper is the first thing you see every time you pick up your phone so it's important to set the right background. Samsung's One UI offers multiple ways to change backgrounds. You can set separate Home and Lock screen backgrounds, your own photos and videos, depth and blur effects and even AI-generated wallpapers through Galaxy AI. So in this guide, I have explained all the ways to change background on Samsung phones. On that note, let's begin.
Change the Background on Your Samsung Phone
The fastest way to change your wallpaper on Samsung phones is straight from the Home screen. Here is how to do it.
- Touch and hold any empty space on the Home screen and tap on Wallpaper and style.
- Alternatively, you can get here by opening Settings > Wallpaper and style.
- Now, tap on Change wallpapers.
- Here, you will see all the available categories: Featured, Gallery, Create with AI, Graphical, Colours and Wallpaper services.
- Here, pick any wallpaper you like. You can open Gallery and set your personal photo as well.
- After that, choose whether to apply it to the Lock screen, Home screen or both and tap on Next.
- You can drag the image around to position it or pinch to zoom. Now, tap on Done in the top-right corner.
- Your new background will be applied instantly on your Samsung phone.
Customise Background on Your Samsung Phone
Besides choosing a background, you can also customise it and One UI gives you a lot of options. These options appear in the toolbar after you select an image and most of them work whether you are setting the Home screen or the Lock screen background.
- Frame uses a depth effect to give your wallpaper a 3D and cut-out look. It works best with a portrait or any photo that has a single subject.
- Effect applies visual looks like blur, Grayscale, colour overlay, darken, etc.
- Suggest (Lock screen only) analyses your current wallpaper and curates matching lock screen styles. You can tap on it again to cycle through more such suggestions.
Note that Frame, blur and depth effects only work with your own photos and downloaded images, not Samsung's stock wallpapers. So if you want that 3D pop-out look, start with a portrait that has a clear subject. Apart from that, the Lock screen editor also lets you change clock styles, widgets, shortcuts and more.
One more thing, if your Lock screen keeps showing random wallpapers and shows ads, that is because of Samsung's Glance feature. Here is how to turn off Glance on Samsung phones and take back control of the Lock screen.
Set a Video as the Background on Samsung Phones
Samsung also lets you set a video as your wallpaper, but it only works on the Lock screen, not the Home screen. Here is how to do it.
- Open Settings and move to Wallpaper and style. Now, tap on the lock screen.
- Here, tap on the image icon in the top-left corner.
- Next, tap on Videos under Gallery.
- Now, select a video from the Gallery. It has to be 15 seconds or less and under 100MB.
- You can tap on Trim at the bottom to cut the clip duration and reduce the size.
- Finally, tap on Done in the top-right corner to apply the video as the background.
If you really want to set a video as the Home screen background, there is no native option for it. That said, you can install Samsung's Good Lock app and its Wonderland module to set a video background. Just bear in mind that video wallpapers drain the battery faster than a still image.
Create an AI Wallpaper with Galaxy AI on Samsung Phones
If your phone supports Galaxy AI, you can generate a new set of wallpapers without ever leaving the wallpaper menu. Follow the below steps.
- Long-press the Home screen and tap on Wallpaper and style > Change wallpapers.
- Next, tap on Create with AI.
- You can pick one of the nine templates like Imaginary, Night, Painting, Terrain, etc.
- Here, tap the highlighted white text in the prompt to change keywords. Now, tap on Generate.
- Finally, tap a result you like and choose whether to set it as your Home screen or Lock screen wallpaper.
And that is how to change background on Samsung phones across every screen. If you want to see everything Galaxy AI can do beyond wallpapers, go ahead and check out our explainer on Galaxy AI features. Finally, if you want to change the Samsung Keyboard background, that is a separate guide and you will have to use Theme Park or Keys Cafe apps.
