Sequoia 15 wallpaper with my photo library not working

I just upgraded to Sequoia 15 on my MacBook Pro 2021 and my desktop picture was replaced by trees. I was having the same problem with trying to get my preferred desktop wallpaper back. I did more research, found this article Customize the wallpaper on your Mac - Apple Support (CA) and discovered that you can drag a photo from a folder on your computer onto the thumbnail at the top of the Wallpaper settings page. So, go to System Settings, then Wallpaper, then drag & drop your photo into the box at the top of the window. Worked for me!

I was not able to get the "System Settings" --> "Wallpaper" --> "Add photo" --> "Choose" option to work. I could choose a photo from my files, but it didn't become my desktop wallpaper. It also doesn't appear to work to drag and drop a photo from Photos directly into the Wallpaper thumbnail box, but you can drag it from Photos to the desktop, then drag it from the desktop into the Wallpaper thumbnail.

I hope this works for the others who are having trouble.

I figured out a solution for this, at least for using a folder (rather than a Photos album) for the source of the wallpaper pictures. For it to work, the folder you are pointing to must be entirely downloaded to the device. There is now an option to right-click on the folder and force it to keep them downloaded if it is an iCloud-syncing folder. Once they are all downloaded, all pictures will work for the wallpaper and will replace the Sequoia trees. When the Wallpaper app tries to flip to a wallpaper that is not downloaded, rather than downloading it (as it should and previously had done), it will just kick back to the Sequoias and get stuck there. This may work with photo albums if you have all your photos downloaded locally, but I didn't test that as I only used photos in a dedicated folder (not in the Photos app).

I'm on a MacBook Pro M1. Are you able to add an album from your photo library, or any single photo at all, as a wallpaper? You've probably already opened the Photos app and allowed it to update everything; if not, do that first. In Wallpaper settings, I had to select individual photos, then switch back to the "shuffle" option, and then change the "Shuffle" time to something other than what it had been before (15 min), to get macOS 15 to actually display my photos instead of the default trees. I recall having had similar problems with Sonoma. The OS wasn't respecting the existing wallpaper settings. Not sure what's up with that, other than the fact that Apple really wants to be sure we all see those trees. 🙄

@rgg_rgg. So again your photos are on iCloud and falls into category (c) in my earlier posting. Even if you set it as below, the photos are stored in "Photos Library.photoslibray" file which is an integrated file to be read only by Photos app. In this case, the Wallpaper shuffling does NOT work. You need to manually drag out the selected photos on your Photos, save them into a designated folder on your hard disk, and then use that folder in your Wallpaper. Obviously this is a tedious and obvious way to do the wallpaper setup, and that's not under discussion here. Unfortunately, that's the only way you can get the Wallpaper shuffing working at the moment.

This actually worked!!! Thank you so much!!! So all that was needed was to remove it from any iCloud folder. I tested it too by putting the desired wallpaper picture/folder in 'Downloads' and that worked too. Again, putting the folder on the main drive was the only thing that worked for me, so thank you!

This solution worked for me on Sequoia 15.3. Moved all photos I wanted as wallpaper to a new folder and dragged that folder into Downloads on my Mac desktop. Make sure all photo file types are the same, my case JPEG. I accidentally had a couple of QT files in the original wallpaper folder. Selected the new folder in Downloads from 'Add Folder or Album' drop down menu in Wallpaper, check boxed 'random', 'every minute', and it worked. Hope this helps.

Everyone, please don't call it a "solution." Shuffling wallpaper from a stored photos in a designated folder is obvious working function. The question was that Mac OS up to Big Sur was able to shuffle through an album in the iCloud Photos. This stopped working from Sonoma. Even worse, from Sequoia the shuffling of photos in a network folder stopped working. Now it only works for photos stored in a local disk.

Please do not post "solution" unless this original function is restored. This is really a big bug that Apple developers ignored for years.

I just set this up. I have a folder in pictures with the images I want as wallpaper.

Open settings and select Wallpaper

Select "Add folder or Album

When that opens The folder name appears in the top left corner.

On the right corner, use the "select all option"

Now the top left image in that folder should have 2 arrows

At the top of the settings window the option to shuffle should be visible with the name of your chosen folder

Under that is shuffle with a drop down for time and a box for randomly

set those options and you should be good to go

It does not work, the only way is to put your preferred pictures into the old "desktop folder" and select it in the wallpaper panel in settings. Still broken with 15.3. Please,

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Ok. A follow up to this earlier note. I was also noting some sluggish behaviour in some other apps so I decided to reboot my Mac into safe mode and do some routine maintenance. I ran a disk repair, saw that there were some lost files with incorrect permissions etc fixed those and rebooted. And .... I got my wallpapers back. I don't know if the update was the root cause or just coincidental but things are now what they should be.

Hi, everyone.

My folder is in the pictures folder on the Mac SSD. You need to put the photos you want in a folder on the system disc. From what I've read it cannot be in photos, or part of the photos app. Then it should work.

my workaround: export just desired pics from Photos and into folder on main drive. (I used users>name>Pictures) So no longer in a Photos Library. And not on an external drive.

While wallpaper is now displaying as I expect it will be a bother to add new pics.

good luck to you.

@christianb15. Indeed, I didn't realize this part. So just to add to my earlier posting, the current "buggy" Wallpaper album shuffling only works when the individual photos (jpg, heic, etc.) are stored physically in a designated folder on your Mac. You can select on Photos option to "Download Originals to this Mac" for quick access, but the photos are then stored in an encrypted "Photos Library.photoslibrary" file. In this case, the Wallpaper shuffling does NOT work. I guess the lazy app developers along the way forgot to include this function in the new OS (since Sonoma).

Apple need to address this issue promptly.

Just done the update to 15.5, nothing changes. If you apply for the Photo Album, you get the "silly" trees.

Only solution is to drop some pictures in a “desktop folder" and choose it as the wallpaper shuffling source.

Sorry that Apple engineers are not involved in fixing this.

Very sorry.

Feature broken since Ventura. Unbelievable. Only solution is to put all your favorites pictures into the old Desktop Pictures folder in system library.

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