Add Windows 10 Lock Screen Pictures to Your Wallpaper Collection

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Microsoft has made Windows 10’s login screen more visually pleasing than ever by displaying high-resolution images in the background, akin to the company’s Bing search engine. The feature is automatically enabled as part of «Windows Spotlight,» which may also show ads along with «suggestions» but generally just rotates through photos on your login screen.

The pictures are of a good enough quality to be used as the wallpaper on your desktop background and if you’ve seen one recently that’s worth adding to your collection, there’s a chance the image is still stored locally. However, accessing the cached lock screen photos isn’t so simple. Among other hindrances, they are saved to an unfrequented location in Windows 10’s user files.

Shortcut: Use an App

Originally this article detailed where to find Windows Spotlight images, batch rename them, and get them locally. While still a valid method, TechSpot reader Captain Five brought it to our attention that a Windows Store app called Dynamic Theme allows you to browse, save and rotate images from Bing and Windows Spotlight automatically.

We’ve tried it and it works pretty well, plus it offers some advanced options, for example letting you save new images every day to a local folder, choose where to use the images (wallpaper or lock screen, or both), and to sync them across your PCs. Honestly why go through all the trouble when you can use this instead. SpotBright is another Windows Store app (who knew there was actual useful stuff in there) that will let you download Spotlight wallpapers with no fuss.

Where to Find the Lock Screen Pictures

As a prerequisite, make sure that «Show hidden files, folders and drives» is enabled: Open Windows File Explorer, click on «View» and check the box next to «Hidden items.»

After that’s done, copy the following directory path into your File Explorer:

Once you’re there, you should see a series of files without any file extensions or thumbnail previews, so you can’t tell if they’re even image files much less wallpaper-worthy ones, and in fact many of them are lower resolution images that aren’t adequate for any desktop background, such as app icons.

Sorting the files to find larger ones is a simple method for picking out the higher resolution pictures and you can manually rename the files with .jpg at the end to begin using them as you would with any other image.

However, the process of gathering and renaming them is easier if you copy all of the files to a new directory where you can apply an extension to each file at once with the Command Prompt, at which point the wallpapers will be apparent from the thumbnail previews.

To batch rename all the files with .jpg as the suffix:

• Open a Command Prompt window (right click Start > Command Prompt)
• Go to the new folder (example: cd C:\Users\TechSpot\Desktop\lockscreen images)
• Once at the new lock screen images folder, enter the following command: ren * *.jpg

All of the files in the folder should be automatically appended with the .jpg file extension. If some of them still lack thumbnails, try changing the suffix from .jpg to .png.

More Spotlight Photos & Disabling Ads.

Not every Windows Spotlight image is going to be on your local drive, but there are hundreds more available for download in these collections on Imgur and OneDrive. Additionally, there’s an app called «SpotBright» which provides a graphical user interface for downloading Spotlight wallpapers.

To disable Spotlight ads, etc. so you only get great wallpapers when you log into Windows 10: Open the personalization menu, click the «Lock screen» settings on the left and change «Windows spotlight» to «Picture» or «Slideshow» in the dropdown menu. Then scroll down and turn off «Get fun facts, tips, and more from Windows and Cortana on your lock screen.»

There are also a range of group policy options for enabling only specific Spotlight features, with Computer Configuration\Administrative Templates\Windows Components\Cloud Content\Do not show Windows Tips being the one that disables ads (search for gpedit.msc via Start, Run etc. to launch the Group Policy Editor).

Bonus

Some of the lock screen images have location and other information if you right click the image, go to Properties and then the Details tab. You can also change the format of the time displayed on the lockscreen:

• Search for intl:cpl via Start or Run
• Set your preferred time format on the window that opens
• Go to the Administrative tab and click Copy Settings. so they appear on the welcome screen

Set Your Windows 10 Lock Screen and Wallpaper to Bing Daily Images

Microsoft Bing changes its homepage image daily with amazing photography from Getty Images and other top photographers around the globe. Microsoft allows you to download the Bing images for free as well as use the images on your system. Here’s how to configure Windows 10 to download and set your Lock Screen, Login Screen, and Background to the Daily Bing image.

Step 1. Down the free Windows Store App – Daily Picture

Windows 10 doesn’t have this feature native yet, so we’re going to use a free app from the Microsoft Store called Daily Picture.

Go to Start and launch the Windows Store. Search for and download the app – Daily Picture.

Step 2. Configure Daily Picture

Once installed, the app will download the last weeks of images from Bing. To configure it, hit the gear icon.

Just flip the switch for what you want. In my case, I set the Bing images as my Lock screen and Desktop Wallpaper.

Bonus Details

The app also has a few more options from the main screen.

1. Refresh image with the most recent image from Bing.
2. Set current Bing image to Background.
3. Set current Bing image to Lock Screen (including login screen).
4. Save current Bing image to hard drive.
5. Open settings.
6. LEFT or RIGHT Arrow to scroll through previous days images from Bing.

I’ve been using the app for several years and I’ve not had any issues with it throughout the various versions of Windows 10. It just works and it’s simple and, I just love the new images that arrive every day.

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.

Where to find Lockscreen Spotlight images in Windows 10?

Windows Spotlight is a fancy feature which exists in Windows 10 November Update 1511. It downloads beautiful images from the Internet and shows them on your lock screen! So, every time you boot or lock Windows 10, you will see a new lovely image. However, Microsoft made the downloaded images hidden from the end user. Here is how you can find those images and use them as your wallpaper or somewhere else.

To get access to image files downloaded by the Windows Spotlight feature, follow the instructions below.

1. Press Win + R shortcut keys together on the keyboard to open the Run dialog. Tip: See the complete list of Win key shortcuts available in Windows.
2. Enter the following in the Run box:

Press Enter

A folder will be opened in File Explorer.

Copy all the files you see to any folder you want. This PC\Pictures is suitable.

Rename each file you copied to add a «.jpg» extension. You can do so by either selecting each file, and pressing F2, then Tab to quickly rename files.Or an even faster way would be to open a command prompt at the selected folder and type this command:

You are done:
Alternatively, you can use Winaero Tweaker. A tool has been added to find your current lock screen image or grab the entire Spotlight image collection which Windows 10 has downloaded and stored on your drive. Unlike scripts you might be using for this, the tool doesn’t collect «garbage» files like provisioned app icons and promoted app tiles. Also, it sorts images according to their screen orientation (Landscape and Portrait). You will find it under Tools\Find Lock Screen Images:

You can get the app here: Download Winaero Tweaker.

Also, you can download very huge collection of Spotlight images from here:

That’s it. Now you can use these images like any other picture — set them as Desktop background, view with Windows Photo Viewer and so on. (By the way, here is how you can enable Windows Photo Viewer in Windows 10).

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About Sergey Tkachenko

Sergey Tkachenko is a software developer from Russia who started Winaero back in 2011. On this blog, Sergey is writing about everything connected to Microsoft, Windows and popular software. Follow him on Telegram, Twitter, and YouTube.

15 thoughts on “ Where to find Lockscreen Spotlight images in Windows 10? ”

Interesting note: If you open an irfanview window, and drag the image [without .jpg extension] in to it, irfanview will automatically re-name it for you.

Yep, you are right. It has the appropriate option in settings. This behavior can be disabled.

To view only jpg files in the user spotlight folder I recommend this tool: SpotlightPicView
http://www.torchsoft.com/node/20

Thanks, but I will use my Tweaker app, as mentioned in the article.
It does its job perfectly 🙂

Grazie, molto snella e utile!

I used the Find lock screen Images tool in Winaaro and it somehow set the default image from winaero permanently on my lockscreen. I’ve been trying reg hacks, gpedits and various other possible fixes for some time now and still have not found a solution to removing this image and inserting my own.

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\Personalization has my image set in the lockscreenimage key.

As a note, In Settings>lockscreen it now has the message “Some settings are managed by your organization” on top. I haven’t found this anywhere else – just this one location.

You can delete the lockscreenimage value and restart your PC. this will “unlock” options in Personalization – Lock Screen.
You can also press “reset to defaults” in Winaero Tweaker on the default lock screen background page.

Thanks a lot for sharing this.

In the current release of the Fall Creators update this doesn’t work anymore! Maybe there is a new folder new instead. Has anyone any idea?

Win 10 1909 не работает. в Папке Local State больше нет папки Asets. И кнопка Get all images stored on this PC тоже не работает.

Win 10 1909 doesn’t work.

What exactly?
I successfully grabbed images in version 2004. All works.

I would love an option to auto-save these into a directory after login, and another option to automatically set the desktop wallpaper to the current lock screen after logging in.

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