How to Find Windows 10’s Spotlight Lock Screen Pictures

By Andrew E. Freedman 08 September 2016

If you have Windows 10’s default, Spotlight feature enabled, your lock screen shows gorgeous images courtesy of Microsoft. Some of these high-quality photos are nature shots while others are pictures of great cities around the world. The pictures rotate several times a day, but what if you see an image you like and want to keep a copy of it on your laptop? Windows keeps these Windows 10 lock screen photos buried deep in a hidden directory, but with a bit of digging, you can find them, save them and even use them as desktop wallpaper.

Here’s how to find Windows 10’s Spotlight lock screen images:

How to find Windows 10’s Lock Screen Images

1. Click View in File Explorer.

2. Click Options. A Folder Options window will appear.

3. Click the View tab.

4. Select «Show hidden files, folders and drives» and click Apply.

5. Go to This PC > Local Disk (C:) > Users > [YOUR USERNAME] > AppData > Local > Packages > Microsoft.Windows.ContentDeliveryManager_cw5n1h2txyewy > LocalState > Assets

You’ll be presented with a plethora of file names that make absolutely no sense and show no extensions. There’s no great method of telling which ones are beautiful photos and which are icons, but you’re better off clicking on items with larger file sizes.

6. Copy the most recent large files to another folded (ex: pictures).

7. Rename the files and add the files suffix .jpg to the end of their names.

You should now be able to view the pictures in any image viewer or editor you want.

One more thing: keep in mind that Microsoft adds and removes these at its whim. If you see one you like, pounce on it and make a copy before it goes away, possibly forever.

Can’t change lock screen image in windows 10

Since upgrading to windows 10 from 8.1 I haven’t been able to change my lock screen backround image to anything other than the default one. When I go to my personalization settings and try to select an image, I don’t even get any choises (see screenshot).

Setting an image as lock screen through the pictures app doesn’t help either, I just get an error message saying that it can’t be set as lock screen. I’ve seen similar posts around but haven’t managed to find a working solution.

Sorry, the screenshots are in Finnish.

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Thank you for posting the query on Microsoft Community.

As per the description I understand that you are unable to change the Lock screen image. We sincerely regret for the inconvenience caused.

Let us follow the below methods and check if it helps:

Method 1: You may follow the steps provided below and check if it helps to resolve the issue.

1. Right-tap the lower-left corner on the desktop to open the Quick Access Menu , and open Run CMD .
2. Type “ gpedit msc” in the Command Prompt window and hit Enter .
3. Find and open the setting named » Prevent changing lock screen image «.
4. For your information, it is located in ComputerConfiguration >Administrative Templates >Control Panel >Personalization.
5. As the setting’s window opens, choose Not Configured and tap OK .
6. The other alternative method is to disable this setting. In other words, select Disabled and click OK in the window above.
7. After that try to change the screen image.

For more information please refer the link below.

If the issue persists follow Method 2

Method 2: A clean boot is performed to start Windows by using a minimal set of drivers and startup programs. This helps eliminate software conflicts that occur when you install a program or an update or when you run a program in Windows.

Please refer to the below article on how to perform a clean boot to know “How to reset the computer to start normally after clean boot troubleshooting”

NOTE: A clean boot is performed to start Windows by using a minimal set of drivers and startup programs.

Please let us know if you need further assistance.

How to remove Lock Screen images history from Windows 10

Windows 10 Lock Screen background images are stored in a system folder which is protected by the Windows operating system. Windows 10 offers no direct way to delete a Lock Screen image from the background history list. If you want to remove the old Images from the Lock Screen Background History in Windows 10 Settings, then this post shows how to delete Lock Screen picture history easily.

Delete old Lock Screen images in Windows 10

All Lock Screen background images you apply via Settings reside under a system folder at the following location –

Here User_Account_Security_Identifier is the number for your User Account. You will have to enable the Show Hidden Files option by opening File Explorer Options > ‘View’ tab and check the box against “Show hidden files, folders, and drives” option.

Also, you will notice that once you have access to the ProgramData folder, you cannot readily open SystemData folder since it is protected by Windows. If you try to, you’ll get the following prompt:

You don’t currently have permission to access this folder.

So it is essential that you first take Ownership of the folder manually. When done, you will be granted access to the ‘SystemData’ folder.

Open the folder, and you will see some folders listed instantly.

Find the folder that contains your use account SID (Security Identifier) number in its name and open that folder.

[To find your SID number, open CMD and run the following command – whoami /user].

This will open another folder with the name ‘ReadOnly’. Open it, and you’ll see a few other folders.

The number of these folders may vary on different computers. However, each of these folders will contain the Lock Screen background images in original resolution with the name “LockScreen.jpg” alongside other information.

Open the folder containing the Lock Screen image which you want to delete permanently, and then empty that folder.

The Lock Screen image will disappear from the Lock Screen background history list in the Settings app.

Date: March 20, 2018 Tags: Lock Screen

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A post-graduate in Biotechnology, Hemant switched gears to writing about Microsoft technologies and has been a contributor to TheWindowsClub since then. When he is not working, you can usually find him out traveling to different places or indulging himself in binge-watching.

What is the location of lock screen images on Windows 10?

Where, or what format, are the images used by Windows 10 when logged out or in lock-screen?

I searched the entire drive for *.jpg, *.bmp, *.png, and *.tif but the one I was looking for did not appear.

At first glance, Path to current desktop backgrounds in Windows 10?, although not exactly a duplicate, appeared to have the path I wanted. But when I went there, the pre-login image was there, but the lock-screen image was not. (And contrary to the claim in that answer, the files there did have extensions.)

UPDATE: I just did a lockscreen, and got an image that IS in that directory, but earlier today, it was consistently an image of an interesting footbridge that is not in that directory.

5 Answers 5

If you are not finding the images in the typical locations, you likely have Windows Spotlight turned on. Spotlight offers random images on the lock screen, as well as other features.

These Windows Spotlight images aren’t stored in the same location as regular Windows wallpaper, however, so here’s how you can find them.

The images are hidden deep, so you will need to change settings before you can view them. To do this, open File Explorer and go to the View tab. On the far right is an Options button, click it.

In the window that opens, select the View tab. Under Advanced Settings , select Show hidden files, folders and drives , then click Apply and then OK to close the open window.

Now it is time to navigate to the following directory (which was hidden before).

This PC > C: > Users > [Your User Name] > AppData > Local > Packages > Microsoft.Windows.ContentDeliveryManager_cw5n1h2txyewy > LocalState > Assets

In this directory you will see a bunch of files without extensions. These are the incognito image files. These are jpeg images of various resolutions to meet the needs of multiple devices screen sizes. You can copy the files to another location and rename them to have the jpeg extension, then you can open them with your default image viewer.

All above did not worked for me at all. Lock screen was still that annoying-cave-entrance .

No matter if I overwrite that Packages\Microsoft.Windows.ContentDeliveryManager_cw5n1h2txyewy\LocalState\Assets folder.

No matter if I replace\edit anything in Windows\Web\Screen folder.

Even gpedit.msc did not help.

Lock screen/logon screen was still that frakin annoying-cave-entrance screen.

If it shows that screen, then it has to be somewhere on the disk.

I found it eventually in C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\Windows\SystemData .

That SystemData folder have to be changed with security edits (you need to take ownership of that folder and its content through properties window, Security tab)

After that you will have to edit picture files within subfolders (depending on how many users are set on the computer).

There will be several folders which could look like:

Hope it will help to some 🙂

In addition to the answer(s) given, I’d like to provide you with a script that instantly copies and renames the file to *.jpg. If you change the view to medium icons or to large icons, then you can instantly see the pictures when you run the script (let’s name it LikeWhatYouSee.cmd ):

The pictures are saved to the subdirectory Saved Pictures in your user profile’s Pictures folder. You can run the script multiple times without harm, the pictures have unique filenames. Over time, you will get a lot of nice pictures in that folder. The pictures will not be removed from there, unless you delete them manually.

Note: After you ran the script above, you can change the lock screen image to any of the liked pictures you saved easily. To do this:

1. Press Windows + I to open Windows settings
2. Click «Personalization»
3. In the side bar, select «Lock screen»
4. In the lock screen settings, select «Picture» (always the same image) or «Slideshow» (alternating images) as background
5. If you selected «Picture», you can click «Browse» to find and select your picture. If you selected «Slideshow», you can click on «+» to add a folder. For the folder, browse to Pictures —> Saved Pictures, where you can find the pictures saved by the script

Note: You might have noticed that the script above copies all images. Sometimes there are also icons included in the Windows content delivery folder, which you don’t want to copy. One simple way is to limit the size and copy only larger files.

With this modified script you can do that (for a more detailed description how it works, look here):

Delete images in Windows 10 Lock Screen

How do I delete images in my Lock Screen choices in Windows 10? I have chosen a few that do not work well (appearance) and I want to unclutter my options, as well as not take up space. Thank you.

***Post moved by the moderator to the appropriate forum category.***

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We understand that you are facing issue with deleting the images of lock screen.

Note: The actual location of the default lock screen pictures is “C:\Windows\Web\Screen”. So, if you need to change default pictures displayed at the temporary location, you just need to copy the pictures of your choice to the location “C:\Windows\Web\Screen” and then browse and select these pictures to change the lock screen.

I suggest you some steps, follow to try resolving the issue.

1. Right click on desktop and select Personalization.
2. Select lock screen.
3. Select the Pictures in Background.
4. Change the selected pictures and check if they are loading in Lock screen.

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Thank you for your suggestion but this did not help me. The pictures that I want to delete are ones that I added myself, and when I followed your location it showed me only the ones that came with the computer. Is there anything else I should try?

Thank you so much for helping.

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Thank you for your suggestion but this did not help me. The pictures that I want to delete are ones that I added myself, and when I followed your location it showed me only the ones that came with the computer. Is there anything else I should try?

Thank you so much for helping.

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I accidently put pictures on the lock screen too and wondered how to delete them. So as far as I can see you can’t delete them from the Preview. I think they are there only temporarily. The Preview only shows 5 pictures to select from and each time you select a new picture from your own files the last one on the right disappears. But the default pictures that came with Windows 10 are in that location Sachin mentioned above.

What you need to do is copy your own favorite pictures that you want and paste them into that location C:\Windows\Web\Screen . I don’t know if you can delete the pictures that are there by default. Then when you look at the Preview for the Lock screen you would have to click on the Browse button and select one of your pictures from C:\Windows\Web\Screen

You will have to do one at a time. I tried selecting 5 at once but it wouldn’t work. Does that make sense to you?

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I accidently put pictures on the lock screen too and wondered how to delete them. So as far as I can see you can’t delete them from the Preview. I think they are there only temporarily. The Preview only shows 5 pictures to select from and each time you select a new picture from your own files the last one on the right disappears. But the default pictures that came with Windows 10 are in that location Sachin mentioned above.

What you need to do is copy your own favorite pictures that you want and paste them into that location C:\Windows\Web\Screen . I don’t know if you can delete the pictures that are there by default. Then when you look at the Preview for the Lock screen you would have to click on the Browse button and select one of your pictures from C:\Windows\Web\Screen

You will have to do one at a time. I tried selecting 5 at once but it wouldn’t work. Does that make sense to you?

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More information about Microsoft’s «Spotlight» feature for the Lockscreen. This shows where the Spotlight images are stored on your computer, discusses where they are downloaded from and how to tweak the selections.

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This Answer Has Never Been Supplied. Unable to Take Ownership Of The Imags in the » Windows Spotlight Folders.»

Nor have I been able to change any of the required «Permissions».

I hate the Images Supplied with The Free Windows 10 update.

When MS Invades My Start Image Prior To The Sign in Page, I Have Seen Loads Of Images and

I HAVE ASKED FOR MORE .

However None Of Them Ever show Up On the Spotlight «Picture Or Slide Show».

I would Like To Have My Own Images in the Spotlight Folders.

If It Is Impossible To Do This.

I would Like a Direct Yes Or No Answer.

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Okay I figured it out while trying some of the suggestions here in the forum. To get rid of your own photos that are in the five slots on the lock screen settings (for Windows 10), first type «lock screen» into the Cortana area at bottom left of your screen and click on «Lock Screen Settings.»

Click on «browse» underneath the five picture options. Choose «this pc» then double click «OS (C:)» followed by a double click on «Web,» double click on «Windows» and then double click on «Screen.» The five default photos for the lock screen will appear as well as a sixth that is solid blue.

You may now select one of the default photos and it will appear in the preview for your lock screen (and become your current lock screen background photo.) The photo you choose also becomes one of the five choices below the preview. Continue the process five times with different photos among the default choices. Each time you select a new photo, the ones you added yourself for the lock screen will disappear.

On mine, I chose the four defaults I liked the best and kept one of my own that doesn’t look too bad on the lock screen. Frustrating that nearly all of my own photos have looked blurry once on the lock screen, but I am guessing they aren’t large enough.

So glad to have found this forum as the previous answers did end up helping me delete those annoying photos I added out of my lock screen choices! I hope my directions are helpful. =)