Want to spice up your desktop? These are the best places to get wallpapers on Windows (2024)

Ever since Windows 3.0 all the way back in the 1990, Windows has included a few wallpapers to choose from. And even though we really like the Windows 11 wallpapers, it can get pretty tiring to have only a handful of images to choose from after using a PC for months and years.

Thankfully, making your desktop more interesting is a pretty easy feat. There are tons of sources for great wallpapers out there, so we're highlighting some of our favorites here to help you spice up your own PC.

WallHaven

So many options

WallHaven is an excellent resource for wallpapers of all just about any kind. There are thousands upon thousands of images here, and there are tags and filtering options to make it that much easier to find the wallpaper for the exact topic you're looking for. If you want some Marvel-themed images, well, you can browse every post tagged with that term, and there are thousands to choose from.

You can filter by aspect ratio, primary color, and other criteria to really get the look you want, so it's a great resource.

Go to WallHaven

Wallpaper Engine

The best place for animated wallpapers

Static images are all fine and dandy, but what if you want your desktop to be truly alive? That's where Wallpaper Engine comes in. This is a paid app, so it's not for everyone, but what it offers is an incredible degree of customization. Here, you'll find hundreds of wallpaper options in all kinds of categories, much like WallHaven. However, these aren't your average static images. All of these are animated wallpapers that really bring your desktop to life, with both 2D and 3D animations at play.

We've actually highlighted some of our favorites on Wallpapaer Engine, but there's a lot more to choose from, and with this many options, we'd argue it's hard to complain about the $4 price tag for the app. Once you have Wallpaper Engine, the wallpapers themselves are free, so it's really worth a shot if you want something unique.

Get Wallpaper Engine on Steam

DeviantArt

Get artsy

For over two decades, DeviantArt has been the go-to place for artists sharing their creations online, with a big focus on drawings and illustrations. It's not necessarily a website for wallpapers, but if you're looking for some incredibly fan-drawn images of your favorite franchises, this is one of the best places to go. As far as filtering goes, DeviantArt is a little less intuitive than other sources, but you can find some stunning pieces of artwork here, and maybe even a new favorite creator.

There are some creations here that are paid, but after all, Deviant Art is also about supporting artists, which is never a bad thing.

Go to DeviantArt

Lively Wallpaper

Unique interactive wallpapers

A personal favorite of mine is Lively Wallpaper, another app that features animated wallpapers. You can use your own GIFs, videos, or even webpages as a background if you want, but the highlight of Lively Wallpaper are the default wallpapers it offers. There isn't a huge selection here, but what is here is really cool. You've got interactive wallpapers that respond to mouse movements and clicks in different ways, like a splash of color that follows your mouse, or a rainy view that has a slight parallax effect.

And on that note, thanks to the power of AI, you can even take your own static photos and the app will try to convert them into parallax images with a sense of depth. That part is also really cool. Best of all, it's a free app, so it's very easy to recommend.

Get Lively Wallpaper on the Microsoft Store

Wallpaper Abyss

A great alternative for all kinds of wallpapers

Wallpaper Abyss is a website that's very similar to WallHaven in nature. It's specifically made for sharing wallpapers, and they come in all kinds of themes and sizes, so there's no shortage of options. There's a wide range of categories to help you filter for the theme you want, and you can filter by resolution, too, so you can find 4K wallpapers easily.

There aren't as many filtering options for search results, but you still get a lot of wallpapers to choose from, and it's hard to complain about that. The home page also features some great recommendations right off the bat.

Go to Wallpaper Abyss

Unsplash

The best photos

If you're specifically looking for wallpapers that are also photographs, there's no better place to go than Unsplash. This is a website dedicated to sharing photos, and there are some incredible shots to be found here. You can filter for categories like nature and street photography, and all of the photos there look phenomenal, plus they general come in very high resolutions, so they're great for high-resolution displays.

From beautiful vistas to some impressive close-up shots, there's plenty to choose from here, and even if you're not looking for a wallpaper, browsing Unsplash is a great way to see some of the most amazing sights in the world.

Go to Unsplash

Windows Spotlight/Bing Wallpaper

Save yourself the hassle

All of these places are great for finding new wallpapers, but browsing all of them can be a hassle, and choosing just one image when there are so many options can be overwhelming. What if you got great new images every day, automatically?

Well, Windows 11 (and more recently, Windows 10 as well) have an option called Windows Spotlight, which changes your wallpaper on a daily basis to a new photo from around the world. It even makes it easier to learn where that photo is from. If you don't like a specific shot, you can use the icon on your desktop to pick a new image, too. It's really easy to use, as you just need to go to Settings > Personalization > Background and choose Windows Spotlight from the list.

And if you don't have that option, the Bing Wallpaper app does something very similar and works on all kinds of PCs, going all the way back to Windows 7. This actually uses the image of the day from Bing, so you'll get some different options from WIndows Spotlight, too.

Download Bing Wallpaper

No shortage of options

Suffice it to say that with all the sources above, you have plenty of options for your wallpaper, whether you want to hunt down the perfect photo or choose a fun animation. There are other sources if you want something more specific, too. A lot of my wallpapers tend to come from the My Nintendo website, where Nintendo offers some wallpapers based on its newest games. I love the company's official artwork, so that's usually my go-to for gaming wallpapers.