How to make animated wallpaper

How to Set Live Wallpapers & Animated Desktop Backgrounds in Windows 10

There are multiple methods to add live wallpapers and animated backgrounds on Windows 10. Here’s how to do it.

If you’ve ever considered setting up an animated desktop background or live wallpapers in Windows 10, it isn’t really a simple process.

However, many people desire this because it lets you make better use of external screens or a TV you may have your computer connected to. Imagine the ability to display a live fireplace or a virtual fishbowl on those screens when you’re not using them!

Drawbacks to Live Wallpapers & Animated Desktops in Windows 10

There are certainly benefits to having an animated desktop, but it can also adversely affect your system in the following ways:

There are multiple methods to add live wallpapers and animated backgrounds on Windows 10. These include:

Free Live Wallpaper & Animated Desktop Apps

We’ll start with the option offered by Microsoft and then continue with exploring the remaining free options. At the end of this article, we’ll cover the three paid options available.

1. Desktop Live Wallpaper for Windows 10

You can get the Desktop Live Wallpaper app on the Microsoft Store. This app lets you use any video file on your PC as life wallpaper.

It supports up to three monitors and will only play when you’re not using that particular desktop. This is a great way to conserve your battery and CPU. Keep in mind that you can only use Windows Media Viewer (WMV) video files as the live wallpaper. If you want to use other video formats, you have to purchase the Pro software.

Select Help & About to see online resources where you can choose from hundreds of free video files to download and use as your live wallpaper.

Note: You can use any online resource to convert video files to WMV so they work with the free version.

2. Use VLC Media Player for Live Wallpapers

One of the less commonly known ways to set live wallpaper on Windows 10 is using the free VLC media player. To do this, launch the video in the player. Then select Video from the menu, and select Set as Wallpaper.

This will put the video in full-screen mode. When you press the Windows key, the taskbar and any other application you open will open in front of the full-screen video.

It’s important to note that the video doesn’t loop. So VLC is best used to set a live wallpaper from a movie or a very long animated scene.

3. PUSH Video Wallpaper

This application lets you use videos as your desktop wallpaper. It lets you play videos from your computer, videos from YouTube, or even an animated GIF you like as well. PUSH video wallpaper supports Windows Vista Ultimate Dreamscene video wallpapers. It’s very easy to find free collections of these online. You can download the app for displaying any video you like, or individual animated desktops from the site’s download page.

Using this app is very simple. Select the plus icon on the right to browse to any video file on your computer. Once you select it and it’s added to your playlist, just select that file and it’ll play as your live desktop background. If you want to use a YouTube video or movie as your background, select the link icon with a plus over it (second from the right) and enter the URL for the video.

Use the controls on the upper right to select whether to play the videos in your playlist in order, shuffled, in an interval, or whether to loop any individual ones.

4. Rainmeter

Rainmeter is easily the most popular application in use today to achieve an animated desktop background. We have a guide on how to use Rainmeter, and you can install and use any skins without having to know any advanced customizations.

Installing a skin is as simple as finding one online (there are Rainmeter skin collections all over the internet), and just downloading and double-clicking the file.

It installs automatically and immediately takes effect on your desktop. Rainmeter skins are some of the coolest-looking animated backgrounds you’ll find anywhere.

This is because it’s not only an animated design, but most skins include valuable information. You’ll see clocks, weather, system information, news from the web, and much more. If you want to go beyond simple animated backgrounds, this is definitely the place you should start.

Paid Live Wallpaper and Animated Desktop Apps

The last three apps that can help you load some of the coolest live wallpaper or animated desktops are not free. However, that also means they’re professionally done and offer lots of great features.

5. Wallpaper Engine

If you’d like control of what your animated desktops look like, then Wallpaper Engine is a good option.

This app lets you either load from an existing live wallpaper collection. Or you can animate your own images with the Wallpaper Engine Editor to create your own live wallpapers.

You can also use your own videos or import them from the web. This is a great animated wallpaper app for more creative types.

6. Stardock DeskScapes 10

DeskScapes is an animated desktop app offered by Stardock. It’s one of the simpler animated desktop apps to use. There are no editing features, but the collection of desktops you have to choose from is significant. Just select the Local tab to see the included desktops. You can also use videos that you’ve saved on your own computer if you like.

Or select the Online tab to see the desktops that DeskScapes has included from internet-based sources.

Both of these lists are very long and cover a long list of categories that include in total thousands of animated desktops. You’ll likely never run out of any to choose from.

7. Plastuer

Another creative live wallpaper app is Plastuer. This animated background app lets you use an animated GIF, video, or even web pages, as your live wallpaper. Plastuer is built on the Chromium open-source browser, so incorporates some of the more advanced technologies like WebGL and Canvas.

It will detect when you’re using an application maximized and pause animation to cut down on resource usage. It’ll also remember the wallpaper you saved so the next time you log in, the animated desktop will launch automatically. In addition to GIFs and videos, you can import DreamScenes, WebGL video, or even bring in images you’ve captured with your own camera.

Using Live Wallpapers and Animated Desktops

As you can see, none of these apps are very complicated to use. But the benefit of having an animated desktop from a video file or from data is huge. With a little creativity, you could actually transform your own desktop into another area of your screen for even more productivity. Or, you can just make it a place of beauty to gaze at whenever you need to take a break.

How To Use an Animated GIF Wallpaper As Your Desktop Background on Windows 10

Customizing your desktop background is one of the best ways of making Windows 10 feel more personal. You’ve heard about gorgeous static backgrounds, but have you ever considered animating your wallpaper? Learn how to set an animated GIF as your desktop background on Windows 10 to liven up the scene.

Unfortunately, Windows 10 does not natively support the use of animated desktop wallpaper. However, many third-party options are available to safely customize your background without having to sacrifice any CPU resources or spend a large amount of money.

In this article, you’ll learn how to use third-party solutions to set an animated GIF or a video for your desktop wallpaper on Windows 10.

Use an Animated GIF wallpaper as your desktop background on Windows 10

Here are 4 methods that you can use to enable animated GIFs as your desktop background in Windows 10:

Method 1. Wallpaper Engine

Wallpaper Engine is one of the most advanced solutions when it comes to customizing your desktop background. It allows you to create your backgrounds, or import other people’s videos, websites, and more. The application will cost you a one-time USD 3.99 charge.

Download : Purchase Wallpaper Engine from the official website for USD 3.99.

After downloading and installing Wallpaper Engine, start customizing your desktop. What we love about this software is the low cost, as well as the low resource consumption.

Method 2. Plastuer

Introducing Plastuer

Plastuer is an application that allows you to set GIFs as your desktop background with ease. Additional functionality lets you set even HTML5 websites as your setup’s wallpaper, opening up the possibilities with powerful WebGL support.

This allows you to create interactive, animated desktops for the low price of USD 2.00. The developers of Plastuer allow you to pay your price for the software.

Download : Purchase Plastuer from the official website for a minimum of USD 2.00 to cover the necessary PayPal fees.

Method 3. BioniX Wallpaper

UniqueTutorials

BioniX GIF Wallpaper Animator is your free solution for achieving the animated GIF background look. It’s handy software capable of setting any GIF or video as your desktop wallpaper. It’s extremely intuitive and makes the otherwise complicated process much easier.

Download : Get the latest version of BioniX from the official website for free.

Method 4. VLC Media Player

While VLC is primarily a media player, it has tons of hidden functions you probably don’t even know of. One of these functions is the ability to set a video as your desktop wallpaper.

Download : Get the latest version of VLC Media Player from the official website for free.

After downloading and installing the VLC Media Player, launch the application and find a video you want to set as your desktop background. We recommend finding an endless loop from one of the following sources:

After acquiring a looping video you want to use for your desktop background, follow the tutorial below.

Final thoughts

We believe these methods have helped you make a great gif wallpaper for your destop. How does it look?

If you need any further help with Windows 10, don’t hesitate to reach out to the SoftwareKeep customer service team, available 24/7 to assist you. Return to us for more informative articles all related to productivity and modern-day technology!

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Create an animated wallpaper: Windows 10, Android, iPhone

If you want to add an animated wallpaper to your device we will explain to you how.

How to create an animated wallpaper for your PC?

Dynamic wallpapers can give life to your screen (although they may reduce the battery life of your device more than a static image). There are two different options of animated backgrounds: multiple successive photos, or a video (or even gifs).

What is Push Video Wallpaper?

Push Video Wallpaper gives you two options: a free, limited and watermarked version, or the full version for $8.50. Once the app is downloaded, run it to install it on your PC by following the installation instructions.

What is Wallpaper Engine?

Wallpaper Engine, by Steam, costs only $3.99 and allows you to add animated backgrounds to your Windows desktop, similar to Push Video Wallpaper. It supports different types of wallpaper from websites and your own videos, in 2D and 3D. The good thing is that as it belongs to Steam, you will have the more than 100,000 community created backgrounds at your disposal for free.

How to create an animated wallpaper for your Android device?

If you want to create an animated background for your Android cell phone, there are several apps, including PhotoPhase, and the very professional Adobe Spark Post that will do the job. We are going to explain only one of them, PhotoPhase, since it is free and gives you a lot of freedom to customize your phone (backgrounds, but also filters, effects, position of the image on your screen, etc. ).

How to create an animated wallpaper for your iPhone?

You can set a Live Photo as wallpaper on all iPhone models except iPhone SE (1st generation). Consider that you can play the Live Photo only on your Lock Screen, but not on your Home Screen.

Tap Live, then choose a Live Photo.

Tap your Live Photos album, then choose a Live Photo.

Tap Set, then choose Set Lock Screen or Set Both.

To play the Live Photo, touch and hold the Lock Screen.

How to make Animated GIF into Windows wallpaper

What is an Animated GIF?

The GIF file format, pronounced gif or jif, was created for graphics, but nowadays, it is often utilized as basic Animated images. To understand its functionality, think of GIF as a short movie that plays in a loop. GIFs are not “videos,” so we call them “Animated images.” GIFs do not have any sound. Also, this file format was not intended for animations; it just happened that way.

Talking more about Animated GIFs, this file format is an effective and straightforward method of conveying a large amount of data. GIFs are now widely used on all social media sites. That’s why I believe that people are curious to use GIFs as Window wallpaper.

Let’s consider this scenario: You work on your computer for the majority of the day, it is guaranteed that your Windows wallpaper is something that catches your eye. If you are tired or bored of seeing the same Windows static wallpaper, here is something that will end this boredom: In this post, we will show you how to make Animated GIFs into Windows wallpaper.

Can we set an Animated GIF as Windows wallpaper?

Unfortunately, Animated GIFs are not supported as wallpapers in Windows. However, numerous third-party tools are used for safely customizing your Window wallpapers without spending money and sacrificing CPU resources.

Can we convert Animated GIFs to Windows wallpapers?

Yes, Of course! You can use various third-party software to convert animated GIFs to Windows wallpaper, including Bionix, Lively wallpaper, Plastuer, Stardock deskSpecs, etc.

How to convert Animated GIFs to wallpaper in Windows?

Let’s check out some details about the above-mentioned third-party software. So let’s head towards this journey!

Bionix

Price: Free

The next section of the article will demonstrate how to make an Animated GIF to Windows wallpaper using Bionix.

Making an Animated GIF to Windows wallpaper using Bionix

Step 1: Firstly, we have to download Bionix GIF wallpaper Animator from its official website.

Step 2: Browse for the destination folder of Bionix installation and hit the “Install” button.

Step 3: Wait for a few seconds as the installation get complete.

Step 4: Choose the “English” language and click “OK.”

Step 5: You can also select the type of user interface of this Bionix wallpaper Changer application.

This is how the Bionix GIF wallpaper interface will look like:

Step 6: You should have a bunch of your favorite GIFs, and then from that list, you can select one for making it a Windows wallpaper. In the other case, you can look for some great GIFs; Giphy is one of the best online GIFS providers.

On this website, I am going to search for the Animated cartoon I like the most. After that, I will download some of these GIFs to use in the Bionix application.

Step 7: Now, it is time to add the downloaded GIFs to Bionix. You can also add the GIF file manually or by utilizing the drag and drop option:

Lively Wallpaper

Price: Free

Now, we look at the procedure to utilize Lively wallpaper for making an animated GIF to Windows wallpaper.

Making an Animated GIF to Windows wallpaper using Lively wallpaper

Step 1: First of all, you should download the Lively wallpaper.

Step 2: Now install Lively wallpaper on your system.

Step 3: Open up the downloaded Lively Wallpaper application.

Step 4: This is how the interface of Lively wallpaper will look like:

I have selected the “Eternal Light” animated GIF as Windows Wallpaper:

Step 5: You can also add your favorite GIF from your system file or using a URL.

Step 6: I have added my most favorite GIF to the application.

Step 7: Now, simply click on the uploaded GIF, and your Animated GIF will be as Windows wallpaper in a few seconds.

Using Lively Wallpaper, we have successfully set an animated GIF as Windows wallpaper.

Plastuer

Price: Paid (Starting with 5$)

Stardock DeskSpecs

Price: 10$ with a free 30-day trial

Conclusion

When you switch on your computer, the first thing you see is your desktop wallpaper, which can set your mood for the rest of the day. Depending on your mood, you may want to put a GIF as your wallpaper, which can be anything like your favorite scene from the movie. However, you can’t use an animated GIF as wallpaper in Windows. In this article, we guided you on how to make Animated GIFs to Windows wallpaper. Among several available tools, we recommend “Bionix” and “Lively wallpaper” as both are freely available utilities, letting you set your favorite GIF as your Windows wallpaper in just one click.

About the author

Talha Saif Malik

Talha is a contributor at Linux Hint with a vision to bring value and do useful things for the world. He loves to read, write and speak about Linux, Data, Computers and Technology.

Lively Wallpaper: Customize Your Desktop with Free Animated Backgrounds

When it comes to working with our computer, it is very important to have a suitable workspace, adapted to our needs and needs. That is why the Windows 10 customization section is very important. For this, Microsoft‘s operating system has the ability to add backgrounds and themes. But if we want to go one step further, we can configure the desktop with an animated wallpaper with the Lively Wallpaper application, which we are going to talk about today.

This app is packed with useful features focused on user experience. By simply dragging and dropping any file into the application it can be turned into an animated background. It has a preloaded library of animated images that we can use for our backgrounds, as well as compatibility with various monitors with HiDPI resolution. In addition, the application is capable of silencing the audios of the videos while it is running as an animated background to avoid hearing sounds.

In the event that our computer is not very powerful, the animated backgrounds can be paused to ensure 0% use of both the CPU and the GPU in order to be able to use all kinds of games and applications without problems. In this way, the application integrates completely with the performance of our equipment to always guarantee that its use does not end up taking a toll on computers that are more modest in terms of resources.

Create your own animated backgrounds in a few easy steps

Once we run the application, it must always run in the background, so when we close the program, the animated wallpaper will also be removed along with it, something that we must take into account.

Set a default background

Once we access the main interface, 15 preloaded wallpapers are shown in the foreground, which we can use with a simple click. It is also possible to view a full screen preview by right-clicking on the option chosen and choosing the Preview background option. We may consider that there are few animated backgrounds included, although the great value of this program is the possibility of creating them ourselves from our videos.

Create an animated background

Creating our own animated background is very simple with Lively Wallpaper. From its main interface we must click on the “+” button that we find in the left column. On the next screen we have three options to create an animated background. In the first one, just drag and drop any file that we want to turn into an animated background. We can also search for any file that we need and that is hosted on our computer through the Browse tab and add it. Finally, we can convert an HTML page or YouTube video into our wallpaper. To do this we just have to put the address in the URL field.

We must bear in mind that Lively Wallpaper has sound output. This means that if the wallpaper that we have created has a sound (for example, a video that we have graded or that we have selected from YouTube), the application automatically converts it into a wallpaper with sound. This is something that we can eliminate from the Settings section.

Settings to configure Lively Wallpaper

To go to the Settings section we must click on the gear at the bottom left. Next, a new screen will appear, with different screens at the top such as “General”, “Performance”, “Wallpaper”, “Audio” and “Miscellaneous”. In this way we can configure different options in each of them.

general

From the General option we can change the language to Spanish and decide if we want the application to start in the background together with Windows to start playing the selected background. We can also change the background of the mosaics, the directory where the wallpapers are saved, as well as the theme between light and dark.

Performance

From the Performance section we can establish rules during the reproduction of the background. In this way we can pause or end the background when we run games or applications in full screen, when running focused applications and when using the battery of our laptop. We can also create screen pause rules, as well as a pause algorithm.

Wallpaper

From the Wallpaper section we can establish the algorithms to resize the wallpaper, select the way to interact, select the video player for those wallpapers that are videos, as well as their quality when Stream or a web browser.

Audio

From this section is where we can configure the general volume of those backgrounds that contain sound, being able to uncheck the box Play audio only when the desktop is focused and reduce the volume to the maximum to avoid listening to the sound of the video that we are using as a screensaver.

Download Lively Wallpaper for free

Alternatives to Lively Wallpaper

If we are looking for an application with which to create and customize animated backgrounds for our desktop, we propose some interesting alternatives to Lively Wallpaper to consider.

Animated Wallpaper Maker

With this software we will be able to create animated wallpapers with our own images and add a good number of visual effects to make it more attractive. Simply put an image as the background and from there add elements with your editor. We can download Animated Wallpaper Maker from this link.

Splashify

Desktop Live Wallpapers

This application incorporates a wide range of animated wallpapers for our desktop. It also allows us to load our video files to configure them as animated backgrounds. It has support for multiple monitors, at least 3 and several DPIs. These moving backgrounds stop playing when our desktop is not visible so as not to use system resources. It can be downloaded for free from the Microsoft Store.