Once you get the basics down on your Galaxy Nexus, you will want to start personalizing it to your own tastes. One of the easiest ways to personalize your phone is to change the wallpaper.
Your Galaxy Nexus supports several different types of wallpaper; you can choose from pre-installed wallpaper images, use a picture from your Gallery app or even use a Live wallpaper for your background.
Wallpaper can be changed in one of two ways.
Changing wallpaper from the Settings app
The first way to change your wallpaper is through the Settings app on the phone.
1. Access the Settings app either from the Settings icon on the second Home screen or from the very top of the Notification area.
2. Tap Display – usually the second category under Device.
3. Tap Wallpaper.
4. Choose:
a. Gallery – to set a wallpaper from your own photos
b. Live Wallpapers – to use one of the pre-installed Live Wallpapers
c. Wallpapers – to select one of the pre-installed Wallpaper images.
5. Once you select an image, choose Set wallpaper to install the wallpaper on your phone.
Changing wallpaper from Home screen
The second way to change your wallpaper is by long pressing on any home screen.
1. Long press (touch and hold) anywhere on the Home screen.
2. A pop-up appears saying Select wallpaper from…
3. Choose either:
a. Gallery
b. Live Wallpapers
c. Wallpapers
4. Choose the image you wish to use and then choose Set wallpaper to set it as the device background.
Downloading new wallpaper
Since wallpaper is one of those things that really sets your phone apart from other phones, you may find that you change your wallpaper with some regularity. That being the case, it is good to have some options to choose from.
Fortunately, there are many places on the web to find wallpaper as well as apps in Google Play. One of the best resources for wallpaper is right here at Android Central.
From the home page of Android Central, just click on Free Android Wallpapers to get started.
1. Choose from:
a. Top Wallpaper Downloads
b. Top Rated Wallpapers
c. New Wallpapers
d. Random Wallpapers
2. You can also choose the View More Wallpapers icon to see the full gallery of choices.
3. Below the images you can also browse by Categories.
Here I found a nice Boston Bruins wallpaper in the Sports category. I select download and can either have it emailed directly to my device or I can use the QR code reader and scan the code to install it right on my phone.
1. Choose the wallpaper to download.
2. From the download page, choose to either have the wallpaper emailed to you or use a QRcode reader to scan the code.
3. The provided link takes you to the Android Central web page, just make sure you are logged in.
4. Find the downloaded wallpaper and choose Set as and choose Wallpaper.
Remember that Wallpaper images do take up some space on your device, so continually monitor your usage.
What wallpaper is currently on your device? Let us know in the forums.
Reader comments
How to change your wallpaper on the Galaxy Nexus
I love Androidcentral....but let's be honest: This is a almost completely useless article. I expect to see something like this on iMore. They usually post common sense articles because there's rarely anything going on in the Apple universe.
Wow... where to start. First of all, the galaxy nexus was released pretty much everywhere by December 15th (cough, Verizon). And it's what.... July 30th.. more than 7 months after. Who do you think is still going to need to know how to do this without a.) having a nice intuition of how to do this kind of crap, b.) consulting the user manual, or c.) buying a different, more hyped phone like the galaxy s3. Thank you. Thank you for wasting our quickly shrinking free space on the internet with what has already been published hundreds of thousands of times in hundreds of languages. And not only that, but when it was more relevant too! As in more than 7 months ago, when Google showed us themselves with videos for this kind of stuff.
Thanks Douche. I just got my phone due to recent price cut. I guess I am not cool enough for you and your phone click. I would expect your Point of View on an apple site, not AC.
Also, the internet does not have an issue of wasting "free space" on the web. You have most likely confused the concept of IPv4 running out and Disk Space. Publishing an article on a web site that is up and running does not reduce the future ability for web growth, it does take a small amount of Disk space on a server farm that host the AC page. Disk space is pretty much irrelevant in the day and age.
Hey AC, thanks for putting up this page. Yes I know how to change the wallpaper, no I did not know of the easier way to do it from home screen. No I did not know you hosted wallpapers for me to enjoy.
Nice! Go Bruins!
what the......
Seriously, the flaming and the trolls all need to stop. I'm a tech geek and quite familiar with android and my Galaxy Nexus, and I thank the OP for this post for many reasons. This is very well written and covers the full course of action it requires for changing your wallpaper, today. Every step. He even provided friendly examples as an additional aid.
To find a how-to guide that actually tells you how-to in plain English with all steps covered is near impossible in the android world. Its usually three very long run-on sentences smashed together riddled with typos and a condescending "if you don't know how to do most of this already then you shouldn't be here" attitude.
No one trusts a technology how-to guide with a date stamp of a year old anymore. How to do something on a device can sometimes change on a weekly basis these days. The fact that the way you change your wallpaper on the Galaxy Nexus hasn't changed in 8 months is luck, and a new owner of the now very affordable GNex may not be willing to trust some punk teenagers guide that was written 8 months ago and then goes around to everyone else's helpful guides saying "I did this already, it never needs to be said again."
All that aside, who's to say the OP isn't a professional blogger in training? What better way to practice then by blogging about something that's relatively simple to do, doesn't involve too many steps, and then see if you can do it better than most other offerings out there with the same material. This very well could be his "hello world" guide. Would we be where we are today with android technology if every "hello world" app or program in Linux was flooded with "I already made this, idiot" feedback? No.
If you already know how to do something, why would you ever click on a how-to guide about it, then get upset at the OP that you read something you already know how to do? It seems like the same mentality of a little kid getting mad for being pushed in the mud by the kid he pushed in the mud first. Or more simply, a bully.
Thank you, Gary. Please continue to provide detailed, helpful guides with extra links to continue further investigation on anything you see fit, whether it's a brand new feature, or a standard one that hasn't changed once.