How to Locate the Current Desktop Background Image in Windows 11

This tutorial will guide you on how to locate the current Desktop Background image in Windows 11/10. Setting a desktop background or wallpaper is a simple task, but finding the location of the currently displayed wallpaper can be time-consuming, especially if you frequently change your desktop wallpaper. Fortunately, there are several native ways to quickly check the location of an active wallpaper displayed on your Windows desktop.

To find the current Desktop Background image in Windows 11, you can use the following built-in options:

1. Using the Classic Desktop Background window

2. Using Registry Editor

3. Accessing the current Desktop Wallpaper location using Windows PowerShell

4. Adding a Desktop context menu option to find the current Wallpaper.

Let’s take a look at each of these options in detail:

1. Find the current Desktop Wallpaper using the Classic Desktop Background window

The Classic Desktop Background window can be used to choose a picture location and select a picture as a desktop background, set multiple images as a desktop slideshow, and find the current desktop wallpaper location. To do this, press Win+R to open the Run Command box, paste the following path in the text field and press Enter: shell:::{ED834ED6-4B5A-4bfe-8F11-A626DCB6A921} -Microsoft.PersonalizationpageWallpaper. The Classic Desktop Background window will open, and you will see the currently applied desktop wallpaper selected with its location visible.

2. Find the current Desktop Background image using Registry Editor

Windows 11 Registry Editor stores crucial system settings and the location of the active desktop background image. To access it, type regedit in the Search box and hit the Enter key. The Registry Editor window will open, and you can access the Desktop Registry key with this path: HKEY_CURRENT_USERControl PanelDesktop. On the right-hand section, look for the WallPaper name String value. On the Data column of this value, you will see a path for the current desktop background. If the path is too long, double-click on the WallPaper String value, and a box will open. You will see the full path in the Value data field. Copy and save that path to check where the current desktop wallpaper is located.

3. Access the current Desktop Wallpaper location using Windows PowerShell

Using Windows PowerShell to find the present desktop wallpaper location is easier as it requires only two commands to execute. First, open an elevated PowerShell window on your Windows 11 PC, and then execute the following commands:

$TIC=(Get-ItemProperty ‘HKCU:Control PanelDesktop’ TranscodedImageCache -ErrorAction Stop).TranscodedImageCache[System.Text.Encoding]::Unicode.GetString($TIC) -replace ‘(.+)([A-Z]:[0-9a-zA-Z\])+’,’$2′

You can execute both commands together. If that doesn’t work, execute them one by one. After that, the active desktop background image path will be visible in the PowerShell window.

4. Add a Desktop context menu option to find the current Wallpaper

This option requires option 3 commands to generate a script and Registry tweaks. The Registry tweaks help to add a desktop context menu option, and the script executes PowerShell commands to fetch the current desktop background image location and display it in the PowerShell window. Before using this option, create a system restore point first. Open Notepad and paste the PowerShell commands there, save this file as find-current-desktop-background.ps1 to C:Windows location. Follow the steps mentioned in the article to add a Desktop context menu option.

In Windows 11, you can access the Background section in the Settings app to view recent backgrounds. It shows the current background and the last 4 backgrounds used by you in that section. To know the location of previously used wallpapers on your Windows 11 PC, access the following path in the Registry Editor window: HKEY_CURRENT_USERSoftwareMicrosoftWindowsCurrentVersionExplorerWallpapers.

Windows 11/10 supports dozens of image formats to set as a desktop background. You can select a JPG, BMP, JFIF, HEIC, HIF, AVIF, TIFF, AVCS, PNG, HEIF, DIB, GIF, WDP, etc., format files to use as a desktop background image. In addition, you can also use some free software to set video as animated desktop background on Windows 11/10 PC.

To conclude, finding the location of the current Desktop Background image in Windows 11/10 is easy with the built-in options mentioned in this tutorial.

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