Can’t Use Your Photo Library as Wallpaper on macOS Sequoia?

If you’ve been trying to use your own photo library as your Mac’s wallpaper and keep getting stuck with Apple’s default Sequoia trees instead — you’re not alone.

Since macOS Sonoma, users have been running into this exact problem: the system simply refuses to display custom photo albums on the desktop. You choose a photo album in System Settings > Wallpaper, expecting your personal images to show up — but instead, you get the same stock scenery from Apple. And unfortunately, macOS Sequoia 15 hasn’t fixed it.

We also covered similar wallpaper issues in macOS Sonoma and published a detailed article on how to fix them. You can read it here: How to Fix macOS Sonoma Wallpaper Problems

As a side note, macOS offers plenty of ways to customize your desktop. For example, you can remove the clock from the wallpaper or display a custom message.

The Wallpaper Issue

Dozens of users on Apple’s Community forums have reported the same issue. The bug affects both still images and rotating wallpaper albums selected from the Photos app, especially when images are stored in iCloud.

Here’s what’s happening:

• If your photos are stored on your hard drive, the wallpaper may work as expected.
• But if they’re on iCloud or a network drive, macOS often can’t access them properly.
• Starting with Sonoma, this functionality began to break (see the article I referenced above) — and in Sequoia, it’s worse.

macOS can’t shuffle through iCloud-based photo albums anymore. What used to be a seamless feature has now been reduced to a static view of whatever nature backdrop Apple bundled with the OS.

Workarounds That May Help

Until Apple rolls out a fix, here are a few things users have tried — with mixed results:

• Use a local folder instead of the Photos app: Create a folder with the images you want, make sure all the photos are fully downloaded (especially if using iCloud Drive), and select that folder in the Wallpaper settings. Open Wallpaper settings, and select Choose a Folder.
• Drag and drop a photo: A few users said dragging a photo from Finder or your desktop directly onto the wallpaper thumbnail in System Settings worked, even when other options failed. In other words, click an image to select it and drag it to the wallpaper icon in System Settigns.
• Export from Photos manually: If you want to rotate through photos from your photo library, you can export them into a folder on your Mac and set that as your desktop slideshow. It’s clunky, but it works. In other words, export the images from the Photos app into a folder on your Mac. Then, go to System Settings > Wallpaper, and select that folder as your wallpaper source.

Important: These methods only work if the images are stored locally. If your photos are in iCloud and not fully downloaded, the system will just ignore them and fall back to the default Sequoia trees.

What Doesn’t Work

• Selecting a Photos album directly in Wallpaper settings.
• Using albums from the Photos app if your library is in iCloud.
• Expecting macOS to shuffle your photo album as it used to.

Even users who followed the right steps — and were used to this working in macOS Ventura or earlier — found it broken after the upgrade.

Still Broken in 15.5?

As of macOS Sequoia 15.5, several users have reported that the issue is still not resolved. A few say it suddenly started working again, but only after jumping through hoops like safe mode booting, disk repair, or full folder downloads. That’s not what most would consider a proper fix.

What You Can Do

If this issue affects you, you can:

• Submit feedback to Apple via apple.com/feedback
• Use a local folder workaround temporarily
• Keep your system updated in case a future version silently fixes it
• We previously explained how you can submit feedback.

Hopefully, Apple will finally acknowledge and fix the bug in an upcoming macOS Sequoia update.