User profile for user: Richard Johnson3
Richard Johnson3 Author
User level: Level 1
11 points

Random cycling through photos in wallpaper STILL doesn't work!

I'm going to repost the original posting which makes it very clear. The only answer said to select the first picture, then last, then select the auto-cycle picture. If the photo album is small, this may work. If it's larger, it still doesn't. (Latest Macos 14.6.1)


Original post:

I am trying to have Wallpaper (through System Settings) rotate through pictures in my photos album as my desktop background.

I have selected and added an album from the Wallpaper setting of system settings via "Add Photo Album" from the pulldown menu at the bottom.

It will display 1 picture on the desktop but when I click on Random (to cycle pictures) it reverts to the generic Mac background.

I have tried running through 'All Pictures', different Albums, individual (smaller albums), and nothing seems to work.

I have it selected to rotate every day but even changing it to all of the different options (5 seconds, when waking from sleep, etc) it doesn't work.


In addition, if I have it rotate through pictures not randomly (without checking the box) it only cycles through 2 pictures.


The photos file is located on an External drive with 3.5 TB available. It is loaded as the default photos album in Photos and doesn't show any delay when observing photos from the app.

The Photos file is too large to put on the main HD which is why it goes through the external HD.

I have run disk first aid on both volumes, checked the "Profiles" (there are none), tried restarting, and probably a few other things.


Mac Studio, Ventura 13.5.1, Apple M2 Ultra, 128GB Memory, 1TB HD space (with 511 GB available)

Apple Studio Display and a single monitor, connected via the thunderbolt cord (that was supplied with the monitor).


Mac mini, macOS 14.6

Posted on Aug 20, 2024 6:22 PM

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User profile for user: christianausbiedenkopf
christianausbiedenkopf
User level: Level 1
51 points

Posted on Aug 28, 2024 4:48 PM

It's a well know problem. I am running macOS Sonoma 14.6.1 and it does not work. It seems to be a problem with photos being stored in the iCloud, if enabled.


Here is a workaround:



  1. You have to select the photos in the Photos app and export or drag them to a folder on your volume outside of the Photos app. This could be a subfolder in your Photos folder of your home directory. Do not add them to a new album in Photos, that wouldn't work. It must be a folder on a volume connected to your computer. You could name the new folder "My Wallpaper".
  2. Then go to System Settings for Wallpaper and click on "Add Folder or Album" (see screenshot below) and in the dropdown menu click on "Choose Folder…"
  3. Now choose the folder on your volume where you copied the photos before (e.g. the "My Wallpaper" folder).
  4. The contents of the chosen folder will then appear further down the list of options in Wallpaper. The option is named after the name you gave to the folder (e.g. "My Wallpaper"). You might have to scroll down to see it.
  5. Now click on the left most image with the two arrows in a circle. This will select to show all photos in that folder. You should see a photo in this folder as wallpaper immediately.
  6. Now select the options how to show the photos in that folder at the top of the Wallpaper settings.


Again, it is important this wallpaper folder is not a Photos album. Instead it should be a folder on a volume connected to your computer (e.g. Macintosh HD). Where you put that folder is totally up to you.


This is a workaround only. If you want to have a lot of photos as wallpaper, this will consume a lot of extra space on your volume, as you make copies of photos and store them on another place on your volume. Otherwise it works brilliantly.

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User profile for user: christianausbiedenkopf
christianausbiedenkopf
User level: Level 1
51 points

Aug 28, 2024 4:48 PM in response to Richard Johnson3

It's a well know problem. I am running macOS Sonoma 14.6.1 and it does not work. It seems to be a problem with photos being stored in the iCloud, if enabled.


Here is a workaround:



  1. You have to select the photos in the Photos app and export or drag them to a folder on your volume outside of the Photos app. This could be a subfolder in your Photos folder of your home directory. Do not add them to a new album in Photos, that wouldn't work. It must be a folder on a volume connected to your computer. You could name the new folder "My Wallpaper".
  2. Then go to System Settings for Wallpaper and click on "Add Folder or Album" (see screenshot below) and in the dropdown menu click on "Choose Folder…"
  3. Now choose the folder on your volume where you copied the photos before (e.g. the "My Wallpaper" folder).
  4. The contents of the chosen folder will then appear further down the list of options in Wallpaper. The option is named after the name you gave to the folder (e.g. "My Wallpaper"). You might have to scroll down to see it.
  5. Now click on the left most image with the two arrows in a circle. This will select to show all photos in that folder. You should see a photo in this folder as wallpaper immediately.
  6. Now select the options how to show the photos in that folder at the top of the Wallpaper settings.


Again, it is important this wallpaper folder is not a Photos album. Instead it should be a folder on a volume connected to your computer (e.g. Macintosh HD). Where you put that folder is totally up to you.


This is a workaround only. If you want to have a lot of photos as wallpaper, this will consume a lot of extra space on your volume, as you make copies of photos and store them on another place on your volume. Otherwise it works brilliantly.

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User profile for user: Richard Johnson3
Richard Johnson3 Author
User level: Level 1
11 points

Aug 21, 2024 2:48 PM in response to AlWeir

Ok, let me correct my posting. I was just being lazy and reposting a different person's original posting because it was describing the same problem as what I'm seeing, but my particulars are actually just a little different.


I'm trying to display photos from a "Horizontal pictures" photo album which is defined in my Photos Library, which is stored on the main drive. When I click on the first image, which represent cycling through all of the photos randomly, it simply displays the standard Sonoma background and never displays any of the photos from my Photos Library album. I can click on an individual photo from the album and that displays. I can click on a few of the pictures from the album and then click on the cycling picture at the beginning. That results in cycling through all of the photos in the album on which I had previously clicked. So, in order to get it to display all of the photos in the album, I guess I would need to click individually on each of the > 1000 photos and then click on the cycling picture! That would take a few hours!


I don't know why Apple can't just fix the obvious bug!


Note, I did clearly state up front that I'm running the latest version of MacOS on a computer which is only about 2 years old.

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User profile for user: Richard Johnson3
Richard Johnson3 Author
User level: Level 1
11 points

Aug 28, 2024 5:17 PM in response to christianausbiedenkopf

Thanks for the reply, however...

1) My photos are not stored in the cloud. They are on the local, internal, disk of the machine itself.

2) I want to cycle through all of my "background" photos (i.e., horizontal landscape pictures), of which I have a few thousand (collected over many decades. This would take up a LARGE amount of additional disk space, if I made a copy of them all!

3) I don't see why Apple can't just fix their obvious bug. We didn't see this of sloppy software testing when Jobs was in charge. Apple has really gone downhill. Sigh.

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Random cycling through photos in wallpaper STILL doesn't work!

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