Set Wallpaper with commands in Terminal possible?

Launch Automator. Click New Document, select Workflow, and then click Choose. From the Files & Folders library, drag and drop Set the Desktop Picture action to the right onto the larger workflow window. Save and name it something memorable (e.g. setDesktopPix.workflow) to your preferred location (e.g. Desktop).

In your SHELL dot file, enter this function definition:

wallpaper () { automator -i "${1}" ~/Desktop/setDesktopPix.workflow }

save the dotfile, and to make the function immediately available, where dotfile may be one of zshrc, bashrc, or bash_profile:

source ~/.dotfile

You can then change the wallpaper with an appropriate image type:

wallpaper ~/Downloads/DSC_0005.NEF

Tested: macOS Ventura 13.3.1 (a) and Zsh 5.9.

You are welcome.

It works with any image format that can be used to set wallpaper, and that includes .jpg images. I just had a .NEF underfoot and used it… 🤓

Remember, any white-space or shell agnostic characters must be escaped in the image filename so the shell does not bork before handing it off to the function.

I have one 32-in display and no other connected, but try the following Automator workflow which should quickly set the same passed wallpaper to all of your detected displays. Again, tested on Ventura 13.3.1 (a).

Code:

(*
 allDesktops.workflow
 
 Set same wallpaper image on all Desktops.
 
 automator -i full/path/to/wallpaper_img allDesktops.workflow
*)

use framework "Foundation"
use framework "AppKit"
use AppleScript version "2.4" -- Yosemite or later
use scripting additions

property ca : current application
property nil : a reference to missing value

on run {input, parameters}
	
	set desktopImg to ca's NSString's stringWithString:(POSIX path of (item 1 of input) as text)
	set desktopURL to ca's NSURL's fileURLWithPath:desktopImg
	
	set nswork to ca's NSWorkspace's sharedWorkspace()
	-- get all detected screens into an array
	set allScreens to ca's NSScreen's screens()
	
	repeat with ascreen in allScreens
		(nswork's setDesktopImageURL:desktopURL forScreen:ascreen options:nil |error|:0)
	end repeat
	
	return input
end run

I have also identified how one can pass a different wallpaper image for each display into a modified version of this workflow.

Hey VikingOSX, I appreciate you taking the time to share all this!

I'm a newbie at Automator coding, so I marvel at your handiwork above. What I'm facing is the annoying 'feature' of MacOS reverting to default wallpaper after even a minor OS update. This is so annoying as I use 10x Spaces across two monitors, with each Space having a unique picture as wallpaper. I have to reselect each Space wallpaper from scratch, together with preferred Centering and background colour choices.

Now THAT is what I would like to script up!

Any thoughts? I'm also running Ventura, v13.5.2

Many thanks,

Michael Abboud

Setting Wallpaper from the Command Line in Mac OS X (osxdaily.com)

more

macos set wallpaper from terminal - Google-

Same wallpaper on all displays, or different wallpaper?