Sequoia 15 wallpaper with my photo library not working

Yes. After I booted into the safe mode, ran disk repair to fix some file permissions et al., the wallpaper function works once again, including the random shuffle.

xristosfromgrc wrote:

After almost a year with Sonoma nothing changed with that issue except that now I see sequoia trees instead of Sonoma vineyards…I still cannot use my photo library as wallpaper on my MacBook Air M1.

you can file a bug report / submit your Apple Feedback here: Product Feedback - Apple

Has this been solved? On my MacBook Pro (M3), with OS 15.2, I cannot select 'Wallpapaer' from the System Settings menu without getting an error message. However, I am able to right-click on the Desktop and select any image I want from Photos or any other of my folders.

Please explain what you did, thanks

From Sonoma, wallpaper using albums from Apple Photos stopped working. Now with Sequoia, wallpaper using photos from network drive stopped working. Now it only works with the images saved on the local hard disks.

Apple is going BACKWARDS!!!

To Apple Support and everyone who will post:

Many people here do not understand what the issue is. Please do not post if you don't understand what I am stating here:

1. Your photos may be (a) on your hard disk, or (b) on another location in your network (e.g. NAS), or (c) on your iCloud. If you "Sync" your photos on iCloud, a great majority of your photos are actually stored in your iCloud space and are not stored on your Mac hard disk. They are downloaded from iCloud each time you access the photos on your Mac.
2. Up to Big Sur, Wallpaper was able to shuffle through the photos in an album for all cases (a) to (c) above.
3. Starting Sonoma, Wallpaper was unable to shuffle through the photos for case (c) above.
4. Starting Sequoia, Wallpaper is now unable to shuffle through the photos for cases (b) and (c) above.
5. For all times, Wallpaper shuffling through the photos on your hard disk was working, and it is an expected obvious function.

DO NOT report that it works on your machine for the photos that are all on your hard disk. This is an obvious function that should work anyway. The whole point of the Wallpaper album shuffle is to automatically update the photo album as you take more photos (e.g. your kid's new photos are automatically added to your wallpaper album selection without having to manually add them to the folder).

It's frustrating to see all the wrong postings...

Apple Developers, please fix this silly bug as soon as possible.

@rgg_rgg It looks like you are still confused. the "Photo native library" photos may not be on your hard disk if you "sync" the library with iCloud. So your case falls into category (c) above. Read my statement carefully.

Hi, I did what someone else suggested here. Go to Apple icon in left top corner, go to System Settings and select Wallpaper from left hand column. At the top you’ll see where you add your photo. If you load it from your Library Folder or Album it shows up in the display box temporarily but keeps reverting back to the trees.

So I did as suggested by taking a photo I had as a jpeg file on my desktop and dragged it across to replace it with the one for wallpaper. Too simple I thought but it worked…until a couple of hours later when I came to answer your post and what do I see but the trees were back😩

It took me over an hour of searching and trial and error on February 1, 2025 to figure out how to use my custom folder of photos as my Wallpaper Desktop on Mac Sequoia 15.2. I dragged the folder titled “Desktop slideshow 2025” over the small icon on the top left (A). Then I MANUALLY clicked on every one of the photos shown below! Then I double clicked on the very first image below with the circular play button (B). Finally my folder started running as a slideshow on my desktop background! Oy...

Since Ventura. By the way, it's almost 20 years that I download my pictures from iPhone to the Mac and without any iCloud upload. Pictures wallpaper worked well up until Ventura upgrade, when it broke down and remained stuck on the first picture. With Sonoma and Sequoia they introduced their proprietary wallpapers and personal Photo shuffling is stuck on that.

@leland238. Yes, indeed these kinds of input helps. Is your problem by any chance related to how many photos are in each of the icloud albums, i.e. perhaps it only works when there are a smaller number of photos?

In any case, it is obviously a bug, and Apple should fix it. Unfortunately, the recent Sequoia 15.3.1 that came out a few days ago still didn't fix it.

15.4.1 and still broken. Choosing one custom album from Photo to shuffle gives instantly the silly trees again. Several years have passed and the bug is still there. Last month I went to a big Apple Store in Mestre, Italy and tried it on a topmost new MacBook Pro showing there and the feature is not working either.

@rgg_rgg You should be able to go to the folder and manually see the photos in jpg or heic files. The native folder you access through Photos app is probably on your iCloud.

I can use a folder I have with images, but I have to choose the image I want. If I choose shuffl, I get the Sequoia trees.

I have exactly the same problem. I am using a M1 IMac. When I tried setting a photo album with rotating pictures as a wallpaper with Samona it just got the default vineyards picture. Now I have upgraded to Sequoia I tried the same thing now all I get now is Sequoia trees. Come on Apple you have had this bug logged for over a year