How to Set Different Wallpapers on Dual Monitors on Windows

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Personalize both of your displays with dual desktop backgrounds

Written by Rain Kengly

Last Updated: October 30, 2024 Fact Checked

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Using Windows 11

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Using Windows 10

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Using Windows 7

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Using MultiWall (Windows 7)

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Do you want to have two different pictures as your background for your double monitor setup? This can easily be done in your "Personalize" settings for Windows. If you don't see the option, make sure you have the correct resolution set for your monitors. Here's how to set different wallpapers on dual monitors using Windows 11, 10, and 7.

Quick Steps

Right-click the desktop.
Click Personalize .
Click Background .
Right-click a photo.
Click Set for monitor 1 .
Right-click another photo.
Click Set for monitor 2 .

Method 1

Method 1 of 4:

Using Windows 11

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1
Right-click any blank space on your desktop. A pop-up menu will open.
- Make sure your dual monitors are set up correctly.
This is in the pop-up menu.

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If you don't already have photos in the Recent images section, click Browse photos to add some now. Once added, they'll appear in the section. ^{[1]
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A pop-up menu will open.
6
Click Set for monitor 1 . This is in the pop-up menu.
- If you don't see this option, the refresh rate may be set too low for one of your monitors. To change it, do the following:
  - Right-click a blank area on your desktop.
  - Click Display settings .
  - Click a monitor.
  - Click Advanced display .
  - Click the refresh rate drop-down menu.
  - Select a higher refresh rate.
A pop-up menu will open.
The new wallpapers will be set.

Method 2

Method 2 of 4:

Using Windows 10

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This will open a drop-down menu.
2
Click Personalize . This is at the bottom of the drop-down menu.
- You should now be on the Background tab of Settings .
If you don't already have photos in the Choose your picture section, click Browse to add some now. Once added, they'll appear in this section.
A pop-up menu will open.
5
Click Set for monitor 1 . This is in the pop-up menu.
- If you don't see this option, the refresh rate may be set too low for one of the monitors. To change it, do the following:
  - Right-click a blank area on your desktop.
  - Click Display settings .
  - Click a monitor.
  - Click Advanced display settings .
  - Click the refresh rate drop-down menu.
  - Select a higher refresh rate.
A pop-up menu will open.
The new wallpapers will be set.

Method 3

Method 3 of 4:

Using Windows 7

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1
Configure your monitor display settings. You’ll need this set up to figure out how to configure your wallpapers.
- Right-click on any blank space on the screen and
- Select Screen resolution in the menu that pops up. A new window will then pop up with the display settings menu.
- When you’re done configuring your display, click Apply .
2
Search for images you want to use for wallpapers. Open Google Images, or any other image browsing site, and select at least 2 images to save for using as wallpaper images.
- When selecting images, make sure to go with ones that are the same resolution(s) as your monitors.
In order to get the images into a format that’ll display across monitors, you’ll need to format them into a custom image (Windows 7 doesn’t have features for wallpapers on multiple displays that are available in Windows 8 and 10).
This menu should have a window with fields for setting the dimensions of the image.
To ensure the image is formatted correctly, you’ll need to input the combined width of your monitors as the image’s width and the height of your tallest monitor as the image’s height.
Once you have the new blank image set up, open the images you saved and arrange them in the way you’d like them displayed.
Once you have your wallpaper images arranged to your liking, save the new image as a JPEG or PNG file in a folder for easy access.
You can do this by right-clicking a blank space on the screen and selecting Personalize from the menu that pops up, then selecting Desktop Background in the Personalization menu.
This pulls up a dialog box where you can navigate to the custom image you saved.
Once you’ve navigated to it, click Open to preview it as your wallpaper.
Since you’ll be displaying this image across dual monitors, the Tile option works best for displaying the image in this manner.

Method 4

Method 4 of 4:

Using MultiWall (Windows 7)

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Open your browser and go to http://windowbox.me/multiwall/ . This is the website for MultiWall, a freeware program that lets you set up wallpapers for displays with more than one monitor.
This directs you to a page where you can find the download links for the latest stable versions of MultiWall for both 32- and 64-bit systems.
Just click on the link for a version of the program that works with your desktop and open the installer once it’s done downloading to set up MultiWall on your PC.
Once you have it installed, you can open the program and pull up a menu for configuring your wallpaper image(s).
Once you’ve opened MultiWall, you should see a menu with three boxes numbered 1-3, indicating the order of display.
Once you have the display settings configured, click on the Upload button above the image preview pane at the bottom of the Wallpaper page in MultiWall. This opens a dialog box where you can navigate to the images you want to use for your wallpapers.
Once you have your images chosen, you can toggle through the different filters and arrangements available in MutliWall to optimize your wallpapers.
Your displays should now have the different wallpapers you selected.