I made a custom wallpaper for my phone — and you can too

I love wallpapers, and a good one always adds character to my phone. I have to look at it every time I use my phone, so I always go the extra mile to make sure I find a good one.

However, that’s not always easy. There are just so many wallpaper apps out there, and while most have a massive selection of wallpapers on offer, it is still hard to find one that I really like. It’s also a time-consuming task for me since I often find myself scrolling through the options for way too long.

Since I always have a general idea of what kind of wallpaper I want and prefer things that are unique instead of commonly available, I decided to start making my own wallpapers. It’s easy, fast, and free — and I’m here to show you how to do it.

The days of designing a custom wallpaper with software like Photoshop are over. If you want to get it done fast, AI is here to help. More specifically, Google’s Gemini chatbot.

Gemini uses Imagen 3, which is an AI image generator. It’s one of the best — if not the best — one out there in our opinion, and it’s completely free. While it was initially available as part of a Gemini Advanced subscription, it became free to all users last month. To access Gemini, all you need is a Google account.

The best way to go about it is to create wallpapers within the Gemini app on your phone — it’s available for both Android and iOS. You can do it on your computer as well, but using a phone is easier since you can save the wallpapers you create and then start using them right away. When creating them on a computer, you’ll first have to transfer the wallpaper to your phone via Google Drive, for example, which is just an extra step you have to take. The choice is yours.

In addition to the Gemini app and a phone, you’ll also need a bit of creativity. This is the fun part. You have to have an idea of what type of wallpaper you want, and the only limit here is your imagination. Perhaps you want a wallpaper of a beach, a city skyline, a mystical forest, or a zebra riding a tank through the Sahara desert while eating a slice of pizza. And don’t worry, you don’t have to have all the details figured out, as you can start slow and then edit the wallpaper you create with additional prompts to make it better.

Now for the fun part. I’ll show you four wallpapers I made for myself using Gemini, and I’ll walk you through the process of how I created one of them. You can check out all four of them above, and I’ll use the first on the left as an example.

I didn’t have an exact vision of what I wanted, but I did know that I wanted a dark and mysterious wallpaper with a bit of life thrown in. I love nature, so that’s the topic I went with. Since I do lots of hiking, I went with a forest theme. So my first prompt to Gemini was, “Create an image of a mysterious and dark forest.”

The image Gemini made is great — see it below — but it’s not exactly what I wanted. I want to see some life in the image as well. An animal or two. I also think the ground is too bare, so adding some leaves or moss makes sense. With that in mind, my next prompt was, “I like it, but let’s edit it to make it better. Add a few animals to the image, a few leaves, and some moss.”

As you can see, the second image is now completely different than the first one, which is something I’ll discuss more in the next section. And while it looks cool, it’s too bright for my taste, and I can hardly see the animal in the background. I think I can make it better, so my next prompt was, “Now add a wolf to the image. Also, make the image darker for a more mysterious look,” which is more detailed than the last one.

Now we’re talking. There’s moss and leaves everywhere, the wolf is upfront, clearly visible, and the back of the forest is now darker for a more mysterious look. I like it and will keep it, but I could edit it as many times as I wanted to make it suit my taste.

When the wallpaper you created is ready, just download it by tapping the download icon in the top-right corner and start using it.

While Gemini is great for creating images/wallpapers, it does have its limitations. The biggest one is that the images produced have an aspect ratio of 1:1, while your phone’s aspect ratio, depending on the model, is closer to 19:9. That means part of the image may get cut when you set it as the background, or you’ll have to swipe to the next home screen to see it. However, the ability to change the aspect ratio of AI-generated images is rumored to be coming soon to Gemini.

The second limitation is about editing photos. You can’t edit small details on a photo you created. As you saw in the example above, each prompt created a new image altogether, and you never know what you’re going to get. When making small adjustments to a wallpaper you really like, Gemini will create a new image with the details you mentioned, but the whole image may be changed so much that you won’t like it anymore.

Gemini also can’t create images of people in general, at least with a free account. Gemini Advanced, which will set you back $20 per month, has this ability, although you can’t create images of specific people like celebrities.

The limitations mean Gemini is far from perfect for creating wallpapers, but it’s more than good enough for my needs. It’s also fun, and the most important part is that it creates unique images, so no one has the exact same wallpaper on their phones.