How to Set a Video as Wallpaper on iPhone & iPad

Have you ever wanted to set a video as the wallpaper on your iPhone or iPad? You’re certainly not alone in that regard, as it sounds like a neat customization right? Although there’s no official support for video wallpapers, there’s a workaround that you can use to enjoy videos as your wallpaper of an iPhone, at least on your lock screen.

If you’re already familiar with setting a GIF as wallpaper then you might know where this is going. For some quick background, the Live Photos feature has been around for a while now, and they are basically animated versions of pictures that you normally take using your iPhone or iPad. Apple allows you to set these live photos as your wallpapers just like any other picture. So therefore, to set a video as your wallpaper, you take a clip and you convert the video to Live Photo, then set that as your wallpaper.

How to Use Video as Wallpaper on iPhone Lock Screen

First, we’ll need to convert your video into a live photo using a free third-party app before you can set it as the wallpaper. So, let’s get started with the procedure:

1. Head over to the App Store and install Video to Live by Pixster Studio on your iPhone or iPad. Launch the app to proceed.
   
   
2. Next, select the video that you want to convert from your photo library.
   
   
3. Now, you’ll have the option to crop the part of the video that you want to use as the live photo by dragging the ends of the clip as indicated below. Tap on the download icon at the bottom-right corner to convert the video to a live photo.
   
   
4. In this step, you’ll be able to preview your new live photo. Tap on “Save” to save it to your photo library.
   
   
5. Now that you’re done with the conversion, you can proceed with setting the output image as your wallpaper. Head over to Settings on your iPhone, scroll down and tap on “Wallpaper” to continue.
   
   
6. Here, tap on the “Choose a New Wallpaper” option located right at the top.
   
   
7. Now, select the “Live Photos” album and choose the live photo that you just converted using the app.
   
   
8. Once selected, you’ll be able to preview your new live photo by simply long-pressing on it. Tap on “Set” to access more options.
   
   
9. You can set it either as your home screen wallpaper, lock screen wallpaper, or both. Choose your preferred option and you’re pretty much done.
   
   

There you go. You’ve learned a neat trick to using videos as wallpapers on your iPhone and iPad.

Keep in mind that your new wallpaper will only animate in the lock screen and you’ll need to long-press on the screen to view the animation. If you were expecting your video to loop automatically whenever you’re on the lock screen, you’re out of luck. At the moment, this is as close as you can get to using video wallpapers on your iPhone. Perhaps that sort of eyecandy will arrive in a future iOS version, but for now this is as close as you’ll get.

Likewise, you can use GIFs as your wallpapers too. Although Apple allows you to choose GIFs from the wallpaper selection menu, they don’t animate when you long-press on the screen, unlike a live photo. Therefore, you’ll need to convert your GIF to a live photo using a third-party app and then follow these steps to set it as an animated wallpaper.

Considering you like to personalize your device with video wallpapers, you may also be interested in learning how to automatically change your iPhone wallpaper with the Shortcuts app. You can select a bunch of your favorite photos and make your iPhone switch between them on a timely basis.

Hopefully, you were able to convert your videos to live photos and use them as animated lock screen wallpapers without much trouble. What are your overall thoughts on this neat workaround? Should Apple add video wallpapers as a feature in future iterations of iOS and iPadOS? Do you know of another method to get this done? Let us know your thoughts and experiences in the comments, and don’t miss out on more Live Photo tips if you’re interested in those.