Wallpaper - doesn't work like it used to

So I don't know what the heck I was doing previously - I am guessing that it was probably trying to set the Wallpaper directly from the Wallpaper window or control clicking on a photo and selecting the Set Desktop Picture option but I can tell you for certain that doing it those ways resulted in Portrait Mode pictures getting the full screen display. But selecting photo(portrait mode) > share > choose wallpaper results initially in a full screen display. Then going into Wallpaper - miracle of miracles! - it does indeed have the Fit to Screen option. A couple of observations - when selecting the photo, it takes forever, 1 minute actually but that seems like forever, to display. Then, to make the correction to fit to screen, takes another minute. Why, with all these fancy chips (mine is an M2 in a Mac mini) does setting the screen saver take so blessed long? When I first got this setup 3 years ago, it was a simple matter of dragging a photo into the rectangle with the ?, the picture displayed instantly and you had the fit to screen option at hand if you needed it. So what happened to that? You will note that I mentioned previously that I am 26.5.1 in the OS - do you think upgrading to the .2 version would improve the Wallpaper procedure? Anyway, it's very embarrassing Luis, to have to admit, that yes, Fit to Screen was there, at least in one of the modes of setting the screen saver.

[Edited by Moderator]

So here is the sequence I go through when trying to set the ScreenSaver, which for me, is a static display of a photo chosen from Photos. BTW, this is all on MacOS 26.5.1 with a Studio Display.

Select a picture in Photos (I chose one in Portrait Mode) - control click on it - share - set wallpaper (there’s a folder beside this option, I don’t know whether that’s of any significance) - then it takes a FULL minute for the photo to appear on the desktop and it’s full screen rather than occupying the middle of the screen with color bars on either side. Going into Wallpaper at this point (I’m enclosing a screenshot), I don’t see any Fit to Screen option which would remedy the situation.

I should mention that I have been told that there is a newer OS that might remedy the situation but I haven’t downloaded that yet, but in any event, I don't see the options that appear in your screenshot in my Wallpaper window.

[Edited by Moderator]

"Do you see any other slowdowns or are you only noticing it specifically in the Wallpaper settings?"

Interesting that you should mention this Luis - yes, there is a general slowness to my Mac now that wasn't there at the beginning. I've enclosed the specs on my setup. Could it be that this is now dated and can't handle Tahoe as speedily as the newer processors? Initially, for me too, the Wallpaper manipulations were instant whereas it takes over a minute now to take effect. The other area where I notice a lag is in searching for a document and it's not like I have a million of them to search through. The search result for a Pages document used to be instantaneous whereas now it's 5 seconds - not a big deal I know, but in Apple Land, that's a long time. I'll do this Etrecheck thing tomorrow and report back.

OK so here's a narrative of what I just did, Chose a photo (portrait mode) in Photos, control click, share, set wallpaper, picture takes exactly 1 min 4 sc to display and then displays in Full Screen mode which it shouldn't have. I then open Wallpaper thinking I can use the Fit to Screen option to have it display correctly and see the enclosed screen shot - no Fit to Screen option! Arghhh! Ah for the good old days of dragging a PM or a LM on to the black square and having it display correctly in an instant! Anyway, etrecheck (whatever that is) scheduled tomorrow. Stay tuned.

I will do the restart, etc. but for the moment, here are the results of the etrecheck run - just a simple question in the meantime - is dragging a photo to the black rectangle in Wallpaper, a thing of the past now?

so I went through the restart and safe restart - big difference! - at least in the Search department. Instantaneous now but not so for the Wallpaper. I'm just going to have to live with its quirky behaviour. It's not the end of the world but it does bother me somewhat that it doesn't work the way it should. Thanks for all your help Luis with this.

Thanks Leroy - I'll use the link to kvetch to Apple about the issue.