Pinch to Crop Wallpaper... still not working

This actually worked. It isn't very intuitive that you need to hold the resized image based on the pinch gesture and then click the done button.

It works but you have to use two hands. Lay the phono on a table, Pinch the photo and hold the press done while holding the pinched photo.

Use 2 hands to crop and hit done with another finger before letting it go.

I found out it can be done if you use two hands, one to hold the cropped image and the other to set it. This actually (finally) worked with my iphone11. It might be even easier if two people did it! Apple should be deeply ashamed that they have allowed this situation go on this long.

Well then you are one of maybe two people in the USA that this works for. It does NOT work for anyone else. It did many years ago (IOS 6 perhaps) but hasn't since and apple just doesn't seem to care so in the mean time pinching and holding the pinch while pushing done works 75% of the time, even then the picture turns out to be stretched.

You have to use two hands. “Pinch to crop” while simultaneously hitting the “Done” button on the top right.

I have done about ten of these now on my iPhone 11 Pro Max.  I got about six (6) usable wallpapers.  In your case, this is what I would try: erase the wallpaper that is screwed up.  Make sure it is gone everywhere espec from the cloud. Then go back to the original foto (download it again) and start over.  I am waiting (without much hope) to see if iOS17 does anything to help with this disgraceful situation. 

After that just keep trying.  On some of them it will take ten or more attempts to get a usable

wallpaper.  For my best one (yes, just one), the setting to put the picture in front of the text (which really looks good) actually worked (was not greyed out) but I could never get it to work on any other image.

Hey there Smorticula,

We'd like to help answer your two questions about the wallpaper as best we can. Let's start with ruling out some possible causes to what's happening, along with confirming more details to better understand what you're asking:

1. What exactly did you mean by the wallpaper 'changed on its own'? The more details you provide, the better we'll understand what you meant.
2. Reading the Pinch to Crop feature when customizing your wallpaper, you mentioned it's 'not working', but what exactly occurs when you try pinching both ways(inwards and outwards)? We're trying to determine what exactly doesn't work when you try this, or does it not respond whatsoever when you pinch it either way?
3. Sometimes unexpected behavior can be resolved with a restart: Restart your iPhone
4. Since you have a compatible iPhone model, the latest version is iOS 16.3. You can verify this within Settings > General > About. In case you needed it, this link shows how to first back up, then Update your iPhone or iPad.

Cheers!

You were right I used two hands one to crop and the other to hold and it worked THANK YOU!!!!

Pinch to crop does not work on wallpaper. I just updated my iPhone 14 pro max. When I pinch to crop and release my two fingers, the photo goes right back to full screen.

Thank you for bringing up this issue and would like to add to this thread - when my photo opens in the Photo app, it fits in the phone's screen nicely. When chosen as a wallpaper on lock screen or otherwise, it enlarges and the pinch to crop may bring it back to normal size (after many attempts) or keeps it too large to use. Ultimately I would like to 'pinch to crop' to make the image(as seen in the photo app) a bit smaller so it fits in line with or under the clock or other lock screen widgets.

Thanks - look forward to a solution if its out there!

Not at all. This is incredible simple and basic. The fact that we have to ask for that is mind blowing. Why even have a feature that automatically zooms in when it’s not asked for. I want the ENTIRE picture on my wallpaper not a section. Why not put the option to turn the zoom OFF or actually make it customizable so I’m not forced to zoom in on a portion of a picture?? Unreal

When I updated to the most current version of the OS the "pinch to resize" function started working. Now I haven't tried it on multiple wallpapers, but on the two I tried it worked fine. Other than the OS update, nothing else changed as far as my iPhone software is concerned.

Wallpaper pinch top crop from photos DOES NOT work....small picture on my photos ends up being too big when I want to use it as wallpaper.....IS APPLE LISTENING

No they are not