You’ve just downloaded a GIF of a kitten running wildly across the starry sky, leaving a rainbow trail behind. This animated image, with its charge of hilarious positivity, has burned itself into your mind and you can’t help but look at it, so much so that you’d even like to use it as the background of your PC or smartphone and you wonder if there’s a way to do it?
In this case, I’ll tell you right now that it’s perfectly possible and in this guide I’ll explain exactly how to do it. If, therefore, you want to know how to put a GIF as wallpaper, all you have to do is continue reading. I’ll tell you right now that this is a very simple operation. You’ll just have to use some programs and applications that I’ll recommend in the next chapters.
Be warned though: setting a GIF as wallpaper consumes more resources than using a classic static wallpaper and, if the latter is battery powered, it will tend to wear out faster. What do you say? You don’t care at all and you absolutely want the kitten running wild as wallpaper? Very well then! Make yourself comfortable and continue with the next lines. All that remains is for me to wish you a good read and a lot of fun!
How to put a GIF as your PC wallpaper
As I mentioned above, setting a GIF or any type of animated content as the background of your device will force your CPU to do a bit of extra work. So I suggest you consider this option well, especially if your hardware is not very powerful. That said, in the following chapters I’ll show you how to make a GIF wallpaper on both Windows and the popular Google Chrome browser with a few simple and straightforward steps.
How to put a GIF as wallpaper on Windows
The first program that I want to recommend to set a GIF as wallpaper is BioniX Wallpaper Changer. It is a completely free software and very easy to use.
Bionix allows you to fully customize your Windows desktop (from Vista on up), plus it provides you with a wide selection of animated wallpapers as soon as you install it.
One clarification: since the program operates on system settings, some antivirus might flag it as a potential threat, but it is what is called a false positive, you can rest assured. In this regard, the developers have also shared a report from VirusTotal.com (well-known Google online service that allows you to check a file with the engines of all major antivirus software simultaneously; I told you about it in detail here) and clarified the matter.
To download BioniX, simply visit the program’s official website and click on the Download button. Once the process is finished, open the BioniX_Wallpaper_v12_Setup.exe file, answer Yes to the Windows permission prompt and click the Install button to finish the setup.
Once the installation is complete, launch BioniX Wallpaper Changer. At this point, all you have to do to use the GIF you have chosen as your wallpaper is to drag the image in question to the Playlist tab of the program. You have to pick up and insert the image by holding down the left mouse button and release it on the small orange window in the Playlist tab. Alternatively, to add the GIF to the program, you can also click on the small white page icon with the green arrow, next to the floppy disk icon.
At this point, you have to click on the Start button, at the top, and that’s it: the image will be set as your desktop background. For everything to work, however, BioniX must be left running in the background reduced as an icon. If this interests you, you can find plenty of GIFs on GIPHY, Pinterest, or you can create your own.
As an alternative to the program I’ve told you about so far, you could also use another software that you might already know to achieve the same result. I’m referring to VLC Media Player. Yes, the very one you might already use to open videos saved on your PC. You should know that there is a function in the settings of this program that could be just right for you.
As a preliminary step you need to transform the GIF you have chosen to set as wallpaper into a video file. Once you have completed this step, open VLC Media Player and click on the Tools item at the top of the player. In the drop-down menu click on the Preferences item, from here, in the lower left corner (under the Show Settings heading), tick the All item.
Now, in the list you can see on the left, click on the Video item, finally check Enable wallpaper mode and press the Save button. Perfect, now when you open any GIF turned into an AVI file, it will be displayed in the background of your desktop. For more details on how this method works I refer you to my tutorial on how to make a video wallpaper.
How to put a GIF as wallpaper on Mac
BioniX Wallpaper Changer is only available for Windows, so if you have a Mac I suggest you resort to the “plan B” I mentioned earlier and use VLC to use a video as your macOS desktop wallpaper. You can find all the details in this guide of mine on the subject.
How to put a GIF as wallpaper Google Chrome
Wondering if it’s even possible to set a GIF as your Google Chrome background? Of course you can! It’s really very easy. I’ll tell you how to do it. First of all you have to save the GIF you’ve chosen as a name: to do this, select it from the site you want to download it from, right-click on it and click on the Save image as option in the context menu.
Now, in the File name field, type a name of your choice, followed by the .png extension, then click in the box below where it says GIF Image, select the All files item, click and finally click the Save button. Alternatively, you can save the GIF normally and then change its extension from .gif to .png (you’ll need it to “trick” Chrome into using it as your browser background). If you can’t see the file extensions, fix it by following the directions in my tutorial on the subject.
Great, now open the Google Chrome browser and open a new tab by clicking on the + symbol you see in the top bar. From here click on the Customize button that you find at the bottom right (it has a brush symbol) and click on the Upload from device button. Then select the image you just saved/renamed and press the Open button. That’s it, now you should see your favorite GIF in all its glory animating on the Chrome background.
Enjoy! If you’re interested in discovering other ways to customize Chrome, I refer you to my guide dedicated to the topic.
How to put a GIF as wallpaper on your phone
I mentioned, in the opening of the tutorial, the possibility of using a GIF as wallpaper on your Android device or iPhone: I explain now how to do it (the procedure is also feasible on tablets). Keep in mind, however, that this is generally not recommended, given the consumption of battery power and resources that this involves. Don’t say I didn’t tell you!
How to put a GIF as your Android wallpaper
Is your phone based on the Android system? Is it? Well, then I immediately recommend you a convenient and intuitive free application that you can use to turn a GIF into your device’s wallpaper. It’s GIF Live Wallpaper. You can use this app without paying any money, as long as you watch some ads while using it. Once you’ve set the wallpaper and exited the app, however, rest assured that no advertising content will be displayed on your phone’s home screen.
To download the application, just visit the official page of the Play Store and press the Install button (if the Play Store is not available for your smartphone, read my guide on alternative stores). Once the download is complete, open the application and press the button Allow the request for permission to use the files stored on the device.
At this point, before setting the background of your Home screen or lock screen, you need to download a GIF image (or create a custom one). Once you’ve done that, go back to the app and press the square-shaped button in the top left corner, making sure it shows the words GIF. Next, press the button with the arrow symbol located below the one I just mentioned.
Then press the Ok button, select the location where you previously saved the GIF and finally press on it, to select it and insert it into the app. Now you can see the animated image on the GIF Live Wallpaper screen. If you find it too small, you can enlarge it by holding two fingers on the ends and then spacing them apart.
The last step you need to do is to simply press on the checkmarked button at the bottom right and the Set Wallpaper button. Then, choose whether you want the GIF to be the background of the Home screen and/or the Lock screen by pressing on the respective buttons, and you’re done. Easy, right?
How to put a GIF as iPhone wallpaper
Is that an iPhone you’re using? No problem, there is a simple way to set a GIF as wallpaper even on Apple smartphones: just use the function that allows you to set as wallpaper of the device a Live photo, to be animated with a long press on the screen while the Lock screen is displayed.
In this regard, I recommend turning to the GIPHY app, which gives you access to thousands of animated GIFs of all kinds and allows you to download them as Live Photos. To download the app, you have to open the app’s official page on Apple’s store, press the Get/Install button and verify your identity via Face ID, Touch ID and Apple ID password (if required).
After the download is finished, open the application to immediately start setting a GIF as your device’s wallpaper. First you have to save an image of this format on your phone. Once you’ve completed this step, return to GIPHY. Click on the Get Started! button and log in with your Apple, Facebook account or fill in the appropriate fields with the required data and a valid email address and press the Sign Up button.
Well, press the button with the camera symbol in the upper right corner and select the GIF you previously saved. Alternatively, you can also search for one in the database by pressing the magnifying glass symbol at the bottom center. The animated images saved on the app’s system are truly endless and I bet they won’t disappoint you.
Once you find the image, press to display it on the screen, then press the three dots icon on the right and, from the menu, press Convert to live Photo, finally press Save as Live Photo (Full Screen) if you want the image to be displayed in full screen, otherwise press Save as Live Photo (Fit to Screen) for a reduced image.
Ok, now open the Settings of your device, press on the Wallpaper item, then press on the Choose New Wallpaper item. In the All Photos tab choose the image created with GIPHY, check Live Photo. From here, click on Set and then on Lock Screen and/or Both (if you want the image, in this case not animated, also as the background of the Home screen) to make the image the background of your device. Happy?
How to put a GIF as HTML background
You are creating a website and you would like a page of your new creation to have a GIF as background to surprise your visitors? Very well, I’ll explain you how it works in this case. As you may know, HTML 5 currently makes it very easy to insert multimedia elements, such as images in GIF format. You simply need to use a few strings of code.
In this case, if you want to use a GIF image as background, the code you have to use is this: . Instead of imgSfondo.gif you must obviously insert the name of the image you have chosen to use. To set an image that is in a different path from the one where the HTML page is saved use this code: . Instead of the word folder you must obviously insert the path where the file is stored.
When inserting a GIF image in this way it is also important to always set a color to the page since while the background GIF image is loaded the browser will meanwhile display the color you set. If the latter is set to the default value, then the browser will use the same color that you have set as your operating system theme. To set the loading background color you can use this code: . To know in detail how to create a HTML page step by step I invite you to read my guide about it.