Unable to change Login screen wallpaper on my MacBook Pro running Sonoma

For all of you that want to change that stupid login background on MacOSX. I am using Sonoma so I can't verify previous (Ventura etc), but it definitely works with Sonoma and not only does it work you can change it any time you like.

These are the steps in Sonoma (may vary for other OS)

Simple steps: First find the image you want as your background image. Next go to settings (either by going to the Apple icon in menu bar, selecting System Settings or selecting the "Cog" icon in your applications. From there select Wallpaper from the list of options on the left, select the image you want, wallpaper changes. Now immediately select Lock Screen located under the Apple icon in your menu.

Your current wallpaper is now your log in background.

You can change your wallpaper back as long as you don't select lock screen again.

Not fully tested in every scenario - working for me.

LALITA_108 wrote:

There isn't a way to change the wallpaper of the login screen from the default "Sonoma valley" image. After speaking with two Apple support representatives and an hour of them looking into it, it was determined that you cannot, in fact, select any other image. Screensaver, Desktop wallpaper, and "Lock Screen" wall paper are customizable, but the login screen wallpaper is restricted to the default image. This is very disappointing.

You can make the Login wall paper the same as your User account wall paper, if the following condition are met

verify:

No FileVault turned on

No guest user or additional user accounts

Must be “List of user” in System Settings> Lock Screen

Thank you. This worked !

Level 1 supporter fixing problems the world's most profitable company can't. It's great.

didn't work for me on Sonoma/intel iMac 2020. restart and you get the fields of the default wallpaper on the lockscreen

The FileVault solution worked for me, but FileVault has to be disabled.

Turning it back on again reverts your lockscreen wallpaper back to the Sonoma default, which sucks.

None of the others have worked for me.

I was told by our Apple Engineer that the Sonoma Valley animation on the login screen is hard coded and can only be replaced by something that replaces the login window (such as JAMF Connect, etc).

In years gone by I never would have though Apple would hardcode some animation in their login screen.

Thanks, the list of users, even though there is only one worked for me.

This works!

I’ve followed your path to that folder, now what? There’s my desktop wallpaper image in there as well as a metadata.plist file

I had no problem changing the wallpaper on Sonoma. However, I find my name and the box at the bottom of the screen, barely visible. I know you can center, stretch, etc the wallpaper, but this did not happen on previous OS. Any suggestions?

Any solution to this problem *probably* is a bug. There is a bug in Sonoma that can cause it to randomly use user wallpapers for the login (not lock) screen. I cam here trying to figure out how to fix that, but it is nice to see that people are exploiting this bug for their own purposes.

This worked for me after turning off file vault (Sonoma on 2017 Macbook Retina 12" A1534). Though boot sequence changed. On Sonoma, immediately upon power up or reboot, the log-on screen appears. I like it this way. After password entry, then the boot process with the progress bar then desktop already. Now after turning of file vault, its the old boot sequence again wherein after the boot bonk, the progress bar then after that the log-on screen.