How do I get an old background back? If at all?

Question

How do I get an old background back? If at all?

Okay, so, some time ago, I had found an image I liked out on the interwebz and set it as my desktop background via the old right-click option. Unfortunately, I recently miss-clicked and set something _else_ as my background, much to my horror, and the previous image has been lost to the void.

It wasn't saved as a local image or anything originally, so is there any way to get that old one back? Is it saved in some weird preferences file somewhere in my computer's backup? I would see if I could grab it again from the internet, but that was more of an accident in the first place, and cannot find it anymore. Suggestions?

iMac 27" 5K, macOS 10.14

Posted on Mar 19, 2019 2:46 PM

Reply

Answer 1

Kurt Lang

Level 9

68,700 points

Mar 19, 2019 2:50 PM in response to Steve_Mumford

It has to be on your drive somewhere, or it wouldn't have been able to be your desktop background at all.

Open the System Preferences > Desktop & Screen Saver. Click on the Desktop tab if necessary. Expand the Folders triangle so the Pictures folder shows (this is the Pictures folder in your user account). If the image is there, click it.

If not, it's still somewhere local to your drive. It's just a matter of finding it.

Reply

Answer 2

leroydouglas

Level 10

199,392 points

Mar 19, 2019 2:55 PM in response to Steve_Mumford

Default background photos are found here /Library/Desktop Pictures.

From Finder>Go>Go To Folder copy and paste:

/Library/Desktop Pictures

Otherwise I would look in your Pictures folder, view by icon to see the thumbnails.

Reply

How do I get an old background back? If at all?

Similar questions