If you use a PC or laptop, your desktop and its corresponding background are the first things you see when turning it on. Some people enjoy customizing their desktop, ensuring that they reach an aesthetic level that they’re happy with. You see, something is soothing about injecting your personality into your PC or laptop’s desktop by customizing the folder icons and background wallpapers.
Speaking of wallpapers, the default ones can get boring after a while. While you can always download new and fun wallpapers off the internet, perhaps you want to try something completely different this time by using live wallpapers.
Using animated wallpapers on Windows 10 and 11 may seem unheard of, especially if you’re only checking the default settings. However, there’s an easy way for you to have an animated desktop background through a third-party application known as Lively Wallpaper.
This article will explain Lively Wallpaper and its features and provide you with a simple guide teaching you how to download and set things up. There’s no need to worry, as this entire process is pretty simple.
What Is Lively Wallpaper?
As you’re probably aware by now, Windows OS doesn’t have built-in features that allow you to use live wallpapers as a desktop background. So, for those who are fond of intense personalization, they have to download third-party apps like Rainmeter or Wallpaper Engine. While these other options are exceptional and do their job as intended, they’re pretty heavy on your device. Not only that, but these third-party options aren’t available on the Microsoft Store either.
This is one of Lively Wallpaper’s selling points—it’s a lightweight app that you can easily find on your Windows’ built-in store app. Lively Wallpaper is an open-source application that was initially only available on GitHub.
With Lively Wallpaper, you have the power to use your saved videos as a live wallpaper, even the ones available on YouTube. It supports most video formats, including WMV, WebM, AVI, MP4, AVI, and MOV.
To make things simpler for its users, you can even use a direct video link when setting up your live wallpaper. The third-party app already comes with thirteen pre-installed animated wallpapers for you to choose from. All of these preloaded wallpapers are not only majestic and beautiful, but they also respond to your mouse and its movements.
Features
Here are some of Lively Wallpaper’s main features that make it stand out from the rest of its competition:
- It’s free and open-source.
- It’s easy to use, ensuring that you don’t need to be techy to use it. With its simple drag-and-drop capabilities, you can quickly transform your files into animated wallpapers.
- The videos or live streams you choose won’t have any sound, thanks to its no-sound regime.
- It has a free library with preloaded live wallpapers that are ready to use.
- Various screen resolution options are available, ensuring that your wallpaper has the perfect resolution for your device’s screen.
- You can also try your hand at creating your wallpaper. The app provides you with different tools you can use, such as audio visualizers, 3D applications, and more.
How to Download Lively Wallpaper
If you want to download Lively Wallpaper, you can easily do so from the Microsoft Store. The first step, of course, is to launch your PC or laptop’s Microsoft Store. You can type in “Microsoft Store” on your Windows Search bar to quickly pull up the app.
From there, type “Lively Wallpaper” in the Microsoft Store’s Search bar, where you’ll find the app you’re looking for. Once you see the Lively Wallpaper app, tap on the “Get” button to start downloading.
Once the app is done downloading, it should appear in your application list. You can look for it by typing “Lively Wallpaper” using Windows Search. You can go ahead and launch the app by tapping on it.
As mentioned, Lively Wallpaper already has a list of pre-installed wallpapers you can choose from if you’re not looking for anything specific. You can select an animated wallpaper from the app’s library—it’s as simple as that.
How to Set a Custom Wallpaper
If you don’t like any preloaded wallpapers, you can set your own using your favorite GIF, video, etc. To do so, you’ll need to launch the app and then tap on the Plus (+) icon located on the menu on the left side. You’ll be redirected to another page, where you can browse files from your PC or laptop.
Look for the file you want to use and click Open. If the video you like is on YouTube, you can also paste in the URL in the “Enter URL” field. Afterward, you’ll find your newly-added GIF or video in the library section.
You can select your preferred custom wallpaper from there. Enjoy!
Using Multiple Monitors
If you’re using more than one monitor, you’ll probably notice right away that your animated background from Lively Wallpaper is only appearing on one screen. Fortunately, there’s an easy fix to this problem.
To set a live background on multiple screens, you must first launch the app and head to the Control Panel section. Once you’re in the Control Panel section, you’ll see the option to choose your display. Typically, the default setting would be “Selected Screen Only,” which means your chosen animated background will only display on one screen.
To change this setting, choose both or all displays you have on the Choose Display group. Doing so will ensure that your background will appear on not just one screen. You can even choose what kind of placement method you want to have for your wallpapers. Specifically, you can either display the background on the selected screen only, duplicate the same wallpaper, or let it span across the screens. Choosing the “span” option means that you’ll stretch out your wallpaper, so we recommend you select an image with sufficient resolution, so it doesn’t pixelate.
How to Stop Using Lively Wallpaper
After using Lively Wallpaper for several days, weeks, months, etc., there’ll probably come a time when you’ll need to stop using it for whatever reason. It could be that you need to free up some space on your device, or you’ve grown tired of animated backgrounds.
Closing Lively Wallpaper is just as easy as installing it into your device. Here’s what you need to do: head over to the app’s Control Panel, and instead of tapping Customize Wallpaper, click on Close Wallpapers.
Selecting this will close out and remove any of your animated desktop backgrounds.
Conclusion
If you don’t want to use a third-party application, there’s no easy way for you to use animated backgrounds on either Windows 10 or 11, as there’s no native option for that. However, Microsoft has a couple of ethereal and beautiful wallpapers available that you might want to use.
In any case, Lively Wallpaper is always a free option you can check out if you’re looking to add some spice to your desktop wallpapers. It’s simple and easy to use, and you can have a fun and interactive background in no time.
