How to change Apple Watch wallpaper

You have long wondered if Apple Watch has the option to choose a personal photo as the background of the watch face. The standard interface, in fact, does not satisfy you that much and you are looking for a way to customize the clock screen without resorting to the options you already know.

True, there are several graphically appealing panels in the Face Gallery of the Apple smartwatch, but perhaps you would like to use that photo you took to make your watch unique. So here I am to explain how to change Apple Watch wallpaper with this tutorial dedicated to the theme.

I’ll start right away by explaining how to reach your goal in the most intuitive way, from the iPhone Watch app or directly from the watch, then we will review some apps to draw from to find ready-to-use watch face backgrounds. For my part, for the moment, I just have to wish you good reading and have fun!

Index

• Preliminary information
• How to change wallpaper on the Apple Watch
  • How to change wallpaper on Apple Watch from iPhone
  • How to change wallpaper from Apple Watch
• App to change Apple Watch wallpaper

Preliminary information

Before starting, a clarification: you will have understood that, on Apple Watch, the change of the background is different from the change of the dial . Changing the dial, in fact, involves changing the entire interface of the watch, including the style of the hands, complications, etc.

The change of the background, trivially, allows you to change only the image displayed in the background . This, however, is only possible with a specific dial where the other elements (the time or the hands) are not minimally customizable. This means that the arrangement and style of the time, for example, are already given, and it is possible to modify the order of any complications as much as possible.

Regarding the change of the dial, I have already written a special guide ; if that’s what you’re interested in, I suggest you read it. In the following chapters, however, we will focus on how to change the background of the quadrants that allow you to do so.

How to change wallpaper on the Apple Watch

If you are ready to take action, you must first set up a watch face on your Apple Watch that allows you to set a custom wallpaper .

At the time of writing there is the Photo dial : a dial with a particular design, which has the characteristic of being totally customizable as regards the choice of the background. It comes in two different variants / styles: Photo which displays the photo as it is and Kaleidoscope which, on the other hand, shows the photo mirrored in a symmetrical structure.

It is important that the image chosen is already in the Photos app (in practice, in the iPhone Photos app) and that it has been “synchronized”, therefore ready to be used as the background of the Apple Watch. Synchronizing a photo , in this case, means making it visible and also available in the Apple Watch gallery, as well as in the iPhone one. There are two different ways to do this: one from the Photos app and the other directly from the Watch app (always on the iPhone, of course).

Mind you: this step is essential to be able to change wallpaper on Apple Watch. So get your iPhone, make sure you have saved the photo of your interest in the iOS Photos app (in this regard, my tutorial on how to upload photos to iPhone could help you ) and proceed as follows.

How to change wallpaper on Apple Watch from iPhone

From the Watch app, which you find on the Home Screen or in the iPhone App Library, press on the Watch faces gallery item , at the bottom of the screen, and scroll to the watch face called Photos . You will immediately notice the words “There are no synchronized photos” , unless you have done so beforehand. Let’s assume, however, that you have to start from scratch (if you already know how to do it, just move on to the next step).

Press, therefore, on the dial and, from the screen that opens, go to the Content section . You will see three items: Album , Photo and Dynamic . The first includes a further one, with the name of the album containing the photos you may want to choose as wallpaper (they will alternate each time the display is turned off and then reactivated, for example by raising the wrist). Select the item Photos , instead, if you want to choose one or more photos (up to a maximum of 24) perhaps cataloged in different albums. The last item, Dynamic , allows you to show your most recent memories on the watch face, then the latest photos you take or the images you download from time to time from the Internet.

You can do the same thing starting from the Photos app on the iPhone: open the image you have chosen to use as the background of the dial, press on the share symbol in the lower left corner and scroll the menu that opens up to item Create a watch face . It is possible to set more than one photo as wallpaper, simply by pressing the Select button , at the top right, and tapping on each single image chosen. Then, as before, press the Share button and then again the item Create a watch face .

Let’s suppose you are interested in setting a single photo as a background: having done what has been said, you will find yourself in front of a screen with two previews corresponding to the Photo Quadrant and the Kaleidoscope Quadrant : select the one that best suits you and proceed with the customization.

In the case of the Photo Dial, you have several options, such as the choice of Color (a “filter” that could make the photo black and white or sepia, for example), the position of the time ( Top or Bottom ) and also the Complications (two in all: one Above the timetable and the other Below the timetable ).

The customization options of the Kaleidoscope Dial are a bit more limited: you can only select the Style of the Kaleidoscope, between Pattern I , Pattern II , Radial and Rosette (look at the preview to get an idea), while the complications are not available .

When you are satisfied, press the Add button and look at your Apple Watch: the Photo Face is already set up!

How to change wallpaper from Apple Watch

You can get the exact same result without iPhone, but first you need to sync the desired photos with Apple Watch. To choose the album to store on Apple Watch, open the Watch app on iOS and scroll down to Photos . From the menu that opens, tap the Selected Photo Album item and press on the one you want to find on Apple Watch. That’s it: you don’t need anything else.

To verify the success of the operation, open the app menu on Apple Watch (by pressing the digital crown ) and select the Photos app : you will see that all the photos in the album have been synchronized, so they will also be available on the watch as well as on the iPhone.

If you want to synchronize a single photo or a set of photos regardless of the album it belongs to, you can add it (or add them) to your favorites by touching the little heart you see at the bottom center once the photo is open. The default synced album on Apple Watch is Favorites , so no further action is required in this case.

Once these steps are complete, you can put iPhone aside and proceed directly from Apple Watch. In the Watch Photos app you will see the images you have previously synchronized and you can set them as wallpaper by simply pressing on the small dial icon located in the lower left corner of the display.

Once this is done, the Create Watch Face menu will open . Select, therefore, the item Kaleidoscope or Photo , depending on your preferences, and you will see that the main screen of your Apple Watch will already be changed.

If you want to further customize the screen, long press on it and then tap the Edit button . Then swipe from right to left of the screen, in order to view all the available customization options (as before, they are Color , Position and Complications in the case of Photo and Image and Style for Kaleidoscope) and rotate the Digital Crown to set each time. turn the various parameters.

App to change Apple Watch wallpaper

As mentioned at the beginning of the post, there are also apps that we could define as real “wallpaper galleries”, ideal if you are wondering how to change the Apple Watch wallpaper and don’t want to bother to search and download manually. the images to use on the Web. Let’s see some of them in detail.

• Watch Faces– simple, functional and free app that collects various images optimized for the Apple Watch Photo Face. The photos are divided by category, for example Fruit , Christmas , Retro and there are so many for all tastes. After opening it, explore the gallery until you find an image that satisfies you (to see them all, click on the See All itemat the top right of each category). So tap on the image, tap the Add Watch Face button > Create Watch Face and proceed with the customization as we have seen above. The app is in English only.
• iFaces– the beauty of this app is that it includes not only static images that you can set as the background of the dial, but also some very interesting live (moving) wallpapers that you can choose by pressing on the menu icon (the three dashes, in bottom left) and then on Live Wallpaper or Photo Wallpaper . To download the wallpapers, simply tap on the download icon in the lower right corner, after having explored the various categories by swiping with your finger from right to left. You will find them in the Photos app; to set them as wallpaper, proceed as illustrated above . The downside is that the loading of the wallpapers is rather slow.
• Facer– a wallpaper app for smartwatches (the Apple Watch must be selected at startup in a list that also includes Wear OS Samsung smartwatches) regularly updated with various free and paid designs inside it. For unlimited access to all available watch faces and backgrounds, just subscribe to the service (free for the first week, after which € 5.49 per month. The annual subscription provides an extra 33% discount). The chosen wallpaper is downloaded by clicking on the Download button on thepreview and then on the Let’s go At that point, just proceed as usual by tapping the Create Watch Face item in the menu that opens.