Finder not showing "set as wallpaper" action

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Level 1

4 points

Finder not showing "set as wallpaper" action

This is a really weird problem, but for some reason Finder isn't giving me the option of setting a picture as my wallpaper. I have no clue why it's happening. Here's an image of the menu that pops up. http://imgur.com/a/uUgNU

I've tried killing Finder.app and Dock.app, messing with the desktop settings, using jpegs and pngs, and even different filesystems, and nothing has worked. The only way I can change the wallpaper is through the desktop settings.

The only thing that I think may have impacted anything is me using the command

osascript -e 'tell application "System Events" to set picture of every desktop to ("/Volumes/untitled/Pictures/Wallpaper/wall.jpg" as POSIX file as alias)'

which was recommended as a command to switch wallpapers, and worked, but may have messed something up. Is there anything I can to do fix finder? I'm using El Capitan 10.11.6, and Finder version 10.11.4 on an early 2015 Macbook Air.

MacBook Air, OS X El Capitan (10.11.6)

Posted on Sep 17, 2016 11:24 AM

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Answer 1

!Miguel!

Level 1

4 points

Jan 5, 2017 8:42 PM in response to ftubuntu

Holy crap, I might have an answer for you. I've been looking around for a week or more for a solution to this problem myself. I tried moving the plists as recommended by Eric Root. That did not work. I read a different article again where another person had the same problem as you and I, but back in 2012. Someone replying there mentioned that the option was under Services. They didn't go into detail. HOWEVER, that was enough to solve the problem for me! Try this, it worked for me: Go to Finder. Then go to the Finder menu, to Services. There will be an option there for Services Preferences (or you can open System Preferences and go to Keyboard > Shortcuts > Services). Find under Pictures the item Set Desktop Picture. **Check the box next to this item.**

In my overzealousness to remove extraneous features, I must've unchecked that box. Checking it again SOLVED THE PROBLEM IMMEDIATELY. Good luck!!!

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Answer 2

dialabrain

Level 10

136,229 points

Sep 17, 2016 12:04 PM in response to ftubuntu

I have no idea why but you are missing the Services item in the drop down menu…

FWIW, the window control buttons in your screen shot are also square instead of round as they would be normally.

FYI, you can paste screens directly into a post by clicking the camera icon rather than using an image hosting site.

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Answer 3

Eric Root

Level 10

685,275 points

Sep 17, 2016 5:30 PM in response to ftubuntu

Might be a corrupt .plist.

Do a backup, preferably 2 backups on 2 separate drives.

Go to Finder and select your user/home folder. With that Finder window as the front window, either select Finder/View/Show View options or go command - J. When the View options opens, check ’Show Library Folder’. That should make your user library folder visible in your user/home folder. Select Library. Then go to Preferences/com.apple.finder.plist and com.apple.desktop.plist. Move the .plists to your desktop.

Re-launch Finder by restarting the computer and test. If it works okay, delete the plists from the desktop.

If the same, return the .plists to where you got it from, overwriting the newer one.

Thanks to leonie for some information contained in this.

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