How To Make Different Background On Dual Monitor

Multiple Monitors Header

Setting a unique background on each of your multiple monitors was a uncomplicated trick in Windows eight, and, for a while, the menu was buried in Windows 10. Luckily, it has been added back in a more logical location.

The Easy Way: Prepare a Wallpaper in the Settings App

Since we originally published this article, Microsoft added a meliorate solution to Windows 10. Here it is:

To alter desktop backgrounds individually for each monitor, head to Settings > Personalization > Background. Nether Choose Your Picture, right-click a background prototype and select "Set For Monitor 1," "Prepare For Monitor 2," or whichever other monitor you desire to utilize it on.

To add additional images to this listing, click "Browse" and select a wallpaper you want to use. Windows will set information technology equally your default on all desktops. Correct-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 Apply This Trick (and When to Use Third Party Tools)

Update: Since Windows ten has added an easy, constructive way to change your desktop wallpaper, as we outlined higher up, information technology isn't necessary to use either of the following methods to change your desktop wallpaper. You still can use the "Imperfect Method" if you want to, though.

First and foremost, we desire to make the best use of your time — both in reading this tutorial and down the road when y'all're using our communication to mix up your wallpapers. With that in mind, consider the following two scenarios.

Scenario i: You infrequently modify your desktop wallpaper, but you would really like to have a different groundwork on each monitor. In this scenario, the solution in this article (which is quick and uses Windows' congenital-in setting) is a perfect one equally information technology'south light on system resources.

Scenario ii: if you want to utilise multiple and dissimilar wallpapers on each of your monitors, and you want a high degree of control over that, so the standard wallpaper options in Windows 10 probably won't cut it. If you lot're a wallpaper junkie or really need fine-tooth control over the backgrounds, then we strongly recommend the venerable (and still quite useful) John'south Background Switcher (free) or the Swiss Army Pocketknife of multimonitor management, DisplayFusion (the features relevant to wallpaper management are bachelor in the free version).

If you find yourself in scenario one, though, let'due south take a look at how to set a custom wallpaper on each monitor in Windows ten. (And if you're in a customize-all-the-things mood, be sure to check out how to customize your Windows 10 login and lock screen, as well.)

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

How to Select Unique Wallpapers for Different Monitors in Windows 10

There are ii ways two go well-nigh selecting multiple monitor wallpapers in Windows ten–neither particularly intuitive. For each method, nosotros'll use a scattering ofGame of Thrones wallpapers to demonstrate. For frame of reference, here's what our current desktop looks like, with the default Windows 10 wallpaper repeated on each of our iii monitors.

Three desktops from a triple monitor setup.

It's dainty wallpaper, as far as stock wallpaper goes, merely a tad boring. Let'south mix information technology up.

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

The first method isn't intuitive because it relies on you lot selecting the images in Windows' File Explorerand knowing how Windows will handle your multiple paradigm selection. Select your images in the File Explorer, using Ctrl or Shift to select multiple images. Right-click on the image yous wish to assign to your primary monitor while the images you desire 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 Panel, not necessarily the monitor you consider the main/important one.

In the right-click context carte du jour, select "Set as desktop groundwork".

Windows volition set those images as your desktop wallpapers. Below, you lot can see that the image we clicked on (the red wallpaper with the House Lannister crest) is on the centre monitor. The two other wallpapers, for Business firm Stark and House Baratheon, are more or less randomly placed on the secondary and third monitor.

Game of Thrones themed backgrounds randomly arranged on three desktops.

This is a peculiarly inelegant solution because you have no command over where the images on the non-primary monitors will be placed. It also has two other irritating shortcomings: if the images are not the exact resolution of your monitor, they won't work, and they will randomly rotate positions every 30 minutes.

With those shortcomings in listen, know that we've shown yous this method entirely in the name of thoroughness and education and not considering we think y'all'll prefer it. Let'south await at a much better method.

The Complicated but Powerful Method: Change Your Wallpaper With the Personalization Bill of fare

Update: The control here no longer brings upwards the traditional Command Console interface, just you can at present utilize the Settings > Personalization > Background window to achieve the aforementioned thing.

When Windows eight came out, i of the outset things multi-monitor users noticed is that at that place were a bunch of new menu options, including a very like shooting fish in a barrel-to-utilize multi-monitor wallpaper selection tool built right into the Personalizations bill of fare in the Control Panel. Inexplicably, that option vanished in Windows 10.

You won't notice information technology in Settings > Personalization > Backgrounds where information technology used to be — there, you lot tin just gear up a single image as your background regardless of how many monitors you lot have. Farther, you lot won't find it where it used to reside in Windows 8, in Control Panel > Appearance and Personalization > Personalization, where there used to be a direct link to it. Strangely, even though no menus directly link to it anymore, the menu itself is just hanging out there waiting for you.

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

control /name Microsoft.Personalization /page pageWallpaper

Press Enter and, past the power of control-line tricks, you lot'll meet the erstwhile wallpaper option menu.

The defunct Desktop Background Window in Control Panel.

If we click on the "Scan" button, we can browse to the folder with ourGame of Thrones wallpapers (or we tin can use the dropdown menu to navigate to existing wallpaper locations like the Windows Pictures library).

Once you've loaded the directory you wish to work with, hither'due south where you'll finally become the per-monitor control you've been looking for. Deselect the images (Windows automatically checks all of them when you load the directory) so select a single epitome. Right-click on information technology and select the monitor you wish to assign information technology to (again, visit Settings > System > Display if y'all don't know which monitor is which number).

Repeat the process for whatsoever wallpaper you wish to apply for each monitor. The end result? Exactly the wallpaper we want on each monitor:

The Game of Thrones backgrounds arranged deliberately on a triple monitor setup.

If yous want to farther mix things upwardly, you can always select multiple images then use the "Picture position" drop-downward menu to make adjustments to how the image is displayed and the "Change picture every" menu to tweak how oft the option of photos you have are changed up.

You can have your desktop backgrounds automatically change between as many images as you want.

Information technology'due south not the most sophisticated system in the earth (come across some of the 3rd-political party options nosotros highlighted in the introduction for more advanced features), but it gets the job done.

Despite the menu vanishing from the Control Console, a little command line-fu returns it, and you tin easily customize your wallpapers across multiple monitors to your heart'south content.