What is Desktop Live Wallpaper+?
Desktop Live Wallpaper+ is a free Windows app that turns your desktop background into a moving, living picture. Instead of one still image, your own videos, photos and animated GIFs play behind the desktop icons as a live wallpaper – one after the other, in the order you choose, with smooth animated transitions between them.
Everything you add stays on your own PC. You put together a playlist (the Timeline), and the app plays it on your desktop while you work, with your icons and windows exactly where they always are.
What you can do with it
Use your own videos as a wallpaper
Play holiday clips, nature footage, timelapses or any short video as your Windows background. Turn the sound on or off, and let the graphics card decode the video for smoother playback with less work for the processor.
Photos and GIFs too
Mix photos and animated GIFs with your videos. Choose how long each photo stays on screen, from a few seconds to a couple of minutes, and the Timeline moves on by itself.
Cinematic transitions
Between one item and the next, the app plays an effect in the style of a professional video editor – combined with a slow camera move – instead of a hard cut or a plain fade. Each pass through your Timeline brings new ones.
A Timeline you control
Add videos and photos, drag them into the order you want, click any one to play it right away, or remove it. A preview shows what is on your desktop now, with the time left before the next item.
No more stretched pictures
Pictures that don't have your screen's shape are shown the way you choose: Fill (fills the screen and crops the edges), Fit (shows everything, with bars) or Stretch. With Frame you can pick exactly which part of a tall photo or a wide video fills your screen.
One screen or two
Choose the screen the wallpaper plays on, or use two monitors: repeat the same media on both screens, expand it across them, or let the app decide for each video or photo.
Control it from your browser or the app
Open the controls in the app's own window, or right here in your web browser on the same PC. Both show the same Timeline and settings, and every change is saved by the app straight away.
Starts with Windows
Let the wallpaper start playing when you sign in to Windows. The app waits quietly in the notification area, where one click opens its start window.
Transitions like a video editor makes them
The heart of Desktop Live Wallpaper+ is how it moves from one video or photo to the next. Not a simple fade or slide: the app builds real video transitions between your items, the kind of effects you would otherwise create by hand in professional video editing software. They were researched and recreated one by one, so your desktop looks edited rather than just played.
Effects from professional video editing
Pixelize, radial and circle reveals, sliced wipes, blurs, squeezes, distance and colour fades and more – 17 effects in rotation, each combined with a pan, scan and zoom camera move on both clips, so the picture keeps moving through the change instead of freezing.
Made on your PC for every pair of items
Each transition is rendered for the exact two items it joins – the end of one, the start of the next – in your screen's resolution. No templates are downloaded and nothing leaves your computer.
A new effect on every pass
The app prepares three different transitions for every pair in your Timeline and rotates through them. When your playlist starts again, the same two items meet with a different effect, so the wallpaper never feels like a loop.
Custom video masks
Alongside the transitions, the app uses its own animated video masks – like the one that plays over your current Windows wallpaper while your Timeline is still empty – to blend motion into your desktop.
How to set a video as your desktop wallpaper
- Install Desktop Live Wallpaper+ free from the Microsoft Store and open it.
- Choose to open the controls in your browser or in the app window.
- Click Add videos & photos and select the files you want on your desktop.
- Drag them into the order you like. They start playing behind your icons right away.
- Optionally, adjust the photo duration, transitions, sound, how pictures fit the screen, and your screens in Timeline Settings and Dual Screen.
Supported files and requirements
Videos, photos and GIFs
Common video formats such as MP4, MOV, MKV, WebM, AVI, WMV, M4V, MPG and TS, photos in JPG, PNG and BMP, and animated GIFs.
Windows version
Windows 11 and Windows 10, on ordinary PCs and laptops. A graphics card that can decode video helps with large 4K files, but it is not required.
Looking for something to play?
Browse thousands of free wallpapers in our galleries: video wallpapers in HD and 4K, and wallpaper photos, in 20 categories from nature and space to cities and abstract backgrounds. Preview any of them, download it, then right-click the file in your Downloads folder and choose Add to Desktop Live Wallpaper+.
Our story
Desktop Live Wallpaper+ began as a personal idea: to let anyone play their own videos and photos as a living Windows desktop. It has been on the Microsoft Store since December 2019 – one of the first live wallpaper apps there – and has been updated ever since, most recently with a new interface you can use in the app or right here in your browser.
It plays your media with mpv, the same open-source video engine that Lively Wallpaper uses.
What sets it apart is its Timeline and its transitions. Months went into finding eye-catching effects and recreating them so the app can render them itself, on your PC, for each pair of your own videos and photos – effects that were long the domain of professional video editors, now playing on your desktop with a new one on every pass.
Frequently asked questions
Is Desktop Live Wallpaper+ free?
Yes. It is free to download from the Microsoft Store.
Will a live wallpaper slow down my PC?
The video plays behind your desktop like any video player would. With hardware (GPU) decoding turned on, the graphics card does most of the work, so everyday use usually isn't affected.
Does it work with two monitors?
Yes. Play the wallpaper on one chosen screen or on two, repeat the same media on both or expand it across them, or let the app choose for each item.
Are my videos and photos uploaded anywhere?
No. The app plays your files from your own PC. This page only talks to the app running on the same computer. See the privacy policy.
Why does this page say the app isn't running?
The controls on this page connect to Desktop Live Wallpaper+ on your PC. Start the app (or install it from the Store), then click Try again.