How to Change Windows 11 Lock Screen Background

It has already been some time when Windows 11 becomes available for the general public. In the beginning, you must have liked its six themes, lock screen backgrounds, and all. However, as time passes by, we always crave something new. So, if you are bored of the default lock screen settings on your Windows 11 PC, and want to change a few things here and there, this post is intended for users like you.

In this post, we will discuss how you may change Windows 11 Lock Screen background, add widgets, and enable/disable the Screen saver. Without getting into why is this required, let’s have a look at how you may customize your Lock Screen as per your own requirements.

How to customize my Windows Lock Screen?

It is quite easy to customize your lock screen on Windows 11. All you need is to visit Settings > Personalization and then select Lock Screen. You will find all related settings here that you may configure. If you want a description of all the changes that you may perform, read the below guideline –

How to Custom Change Windows 11 Lock Screen

If you would like to customize the Lock Screen on your Windows 11 PC, do the following –

1] Decide what you prefer

Windows 11 lets you choose between three modes for your lock screen. They are Windows spotlight, Picture, and Slideshow.

Windows spotlight: This is the most sought lock screen background among users. With this enabled, the system will automatically download and set the Bing images as the default background.
Picture: Enabling this mode will let you set a single image on the Lock Screen. You may either use the already available pictures or click browse photos to select a specific image.
Slideshow: As its name suggests, you may select several pictures when you opt for this setting. Every time you lock the screen, a new image will appear on it. Of course, the image that will appear will be one of those images that you had selected before.

Now that you know what you want with your Lock Screen background, change it by following the below guideline. Let’s see how can you do that –

2] Change Windows 11 Lock Screen Background to Picture

To change or configure the lock screen background on Windows 11, do the following –

Right-click anywhere on the desktop screen and select Personalize.
The system will redirect you to the Personalization under Settings.
Scroll down and select Lock Screen.
Moving forward, use the drop-down menu next to “Personalize your lock screen”, and choose in between the available options. The options have already been discussed in detail above. They are Windows spotlight, Picture, and Slideshow.

Since you are looking into it, you must be curious to apply a specific image on the lock screen. If that’s the case, select Picture and then Browse photos. Go to the location where you had saved the image. Select that one and the lock screen background will change automatically.

Tick the checkbox next to “Get fun facts, tips, tricks, and more on your lock screen” next.

Note: If you would like to view this image while being on the sign-in screen, enable the radio button next to “Show the lock screen background picture on the sign-in screen”. The chosen image will, however, appear as a blurred image on the login screen.

There’s one more setting that you may configure on the lock screen. And this is the option to show a widget on it. You may select one of the following – Mail, Weather, or Calendar. Come out of the Settings page, and the changes will be applied instantly on your device.

3] Select Slideshow as your default Windows 11 Lock Screen

To enable viewing more than one image on the lock screen, do the following –

Press Win + I to launch Settings.
Select Personalization on the left navigation, and jump to the right pane.
Use the drop-down menu and select Slideshow this time.
The other settings will remain as they are. For example, Blurred image on the sign-in screen, widget selection, and all.

Enabling the Slideshow will open a few advanced settings as well which you may configure as follows –

Include Camera roll folders.
Restrict using only those pictures that fit your display screen.
Stop/Resume playing slideshow when your device is on battery power.
Display the Lock Screen instead of turning the PC off when the device went under inactive mode.

Note: You may even pre-define a time range after which the screen turns off or simply keep it enabled forever.

4] Select a Screen Saver

Normally when the screen turns off, you see a black screen. To re-activate it, you have to press any key using your keyboard. In case you don’t want your screen turning off, you may go for a Screen Saver as well. Here’s how to enable a screen saver on Windows 11 PC –