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My iPhone keeps changing the wallpaper

My iPhone keeps changing the wallpaper when I charge it or when I reastart it. Is that normal? It happened after updating to iOS 16

iPhone 12 Pro Max, iOS 16

Posted on Oct 8, 2022 6:56 AM

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59 replies

Mar 11, 2023 2:57 PM in response to antonis229

The issues seams to be adding your preferred wallpaper to a focus. If you add it, it’s going to always trigger that particular focus, being permanently associated to it.


In my case I had added my favorite wallpaper to a focus related to work. That wallpaper became exclusively linked to that focus, so any time I deactivate that focus, instead of maintaining that wallpaper, that should also be my default one, it changed to another wallpaper.


Once you remove the wallpaper from the focus mode, or choose a different one to replace it, the issue stops.


I think Apple could do something other than simply linking them permanently to a focus mode.



May 27, 2023 6:42 AM in response to antonis229

Ok I think I found a few solutions since it seems we all have similar but different problems:


If you keep getting your old lockscreen as both the lock and home screens, and if it appears as an option in the wallpaper menu, follow this guide (https://www.laptopmag.com/how-to/how-to-delete-wallpaper-on-iphone) to delete that wallpaper pair and you’ll be able to select your custom wallpaper without it defaulting to the old one.


If you use any of the focus modes such as bedtime or do not disturb, go to Focus in settings and make sure there is no wallpaper in those sections. It should be blank, and if not there’s a (-) button that deletes them. The reason this one was buggy was because turning the focus modes off before their set times pass causes the focus modes to turn back on and select their designated wallpapers which gets really annoying.


If you get the exact same lock and Home Screen combination that you used to have before updating your phone, a mix of the two solutions above helped me fix that issue. (For now, not sure if it’ll come back)


If you believe you have one of these issues just restart your phone and see what wallpaper it turns into.

My iPhone keeps changing the wallpaper

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