How to Set Live Wallpapers on an iPhone

If you’re tired of using the same old still photos as your wallpaper on your iPhone, you can switch things up and go with a live wallpaper.

Live wallpapers offer fun and easy ways of making your iPhone match your personality, style and interests. It also takes out the boredom of using and having to change still photos every day to get an exciting background for your iPhone.

Learn how you can set live wallpapers on an iPhone.

Live Wallpaper vs. Dynamic Wallpaper

Live wallpaper is interactive and dynamic, and offers an animation effect, but it only works on the lock screen. It’s displayed when waking up your iPhone.

Live wallpapers appear like they’re still images, but when you down-press your screen, they come alive and animate or move. For the live wallpaper to be activated with the long-press on the screen, it has to be a 3D Touch screen, which means you can only use them on an iPhone 6S or newer model.

Conversely, dynamic wallpaper appears on the Home screen behind your apps. Unlike live wallpapers, the dynamic wallpaper can work on both home and lock screens, and is more of a short video clip that plays on a loop.

Dynamic wallpapers don’t need a 3D Touch screen to work, so any iPhone running iOS 7 or later version can use these type of wallpapers.

The main drawback with the two types of wallpapers is that the live wallpaper only works on the lock screen so it can animate, while the dynamic wallpaper works on both screens, but you can’t add your own easily.

How to Set Live Wallpaper on iPhone

1. Go to your iPhone home screen and tap Settings.

2. Next, find Wallpaper from the settings list and tap to open it.

3. Select “Choose a New Wallpaper.”

4. Tap “Live” to get the live wallpaper on your Lock screen. Make sure you get a full screen preview of it by tapping on the one you want, and then long-press the screen to see it animate.

5. Next, tap “Set” to confirm your selection.

6. Tap “Set Lock Screen,” “Set Home Screen” or “Set both” to choose how the wallpaper will be used. Live wallpapers work on the Lock screen, so if you select Home screen, it’ll appear as a still image.

How to Set a Dynamic Wallpaper on iPhone

The process is similar to setting a live wallpaper except you select “Dynamic” after tapping “Choose a New Wallpaper” so you can pick the video clip you want to use for your home or lock screen.

Unlike live wallpapers that you have to long-press to watch how it animates, the Dynamic wallpaper will play even in the screen preview so you don’t need to hold down the screen for anything. Tap “Set” when ready and select Lock or Home screen or both if you prefer.

How to Get Live Wallpapers for Your iPhone

If you don’t fancy the live wallpapers that come pre-installed on your iPhone, you can find different ones online, from apps, or make your own custom live or dynamic wallpapers from videos.

For dynamic wallpapers, Apple doesn’t allow you to add your own, unless you jailbreak your iPhone, which isn’t recommended. In this case, you’ll have to make do with what’s available.

Live wallpapers are readily available online or from apps, so you can search for live wallpapers for your iPhone and find a wide variety of free options available for download. There are also many App Store apps that offer free live wallpapers, such as Live Wallpapers Now or Wallpapers for Me, which are free apps.

If you prefer your own live wallpapers, you can create some by recording custom videos on your iPhone, and customizing the wallpapers every day if you like.

Wrap-Up

Go on and get some cool wallpapers from any of the apps we’ve mentioned or create your own and share your experience with us. We’d love to hear your thoughts.