You can change the login screen wallpaper image that appears when you start your Mac to any image you want to use. We previously wrote about how you can change the login screen image in macOS Mojave. It seems that it is a little harder to change this background image for the login screen wallpaper now but it is still possible. You may want to do this so that you do not have to stare at the generic Catalina image every time you type in your password.
macOS Catalina custom login screen
Here is how:
Please follow each step carefully:
1. Find or create the image you want to use. You can find it online. You can create one yourself. You can modify using the Preview app or using any other photo editing apps. This will be your login screen. I created a basic solid black image. See below. Save this image anywhere you want on your computer (e.g, Desktop etc). Just make sure that you can easily find it as we will need this later. There are different types of image formats. Your image can be a JPG or PNG (the most common types). 
2. Rename this file as Catalina.heic (HEIC files)
You can rename it by selecting it and hitting the ‘return’ key and entering this new name.
3. Now we will disable System Integrity Protection. Do not worry we will re-enable it after we are done. And this can be done via Recovery Mode. Here is how:
- Turn off your computer
- Turn on your Mac and immediately press and enter the Command (⌘)-R keys. Keep these keys when you see a login or the recovery mode screen.
- You will be asked to enter your password
- After starting up from macOS Recovery, click Utilities (from the top menu)
- In terminal enter the following command and press enter (this will turn off System Integrity Protection)
csrutil disable
- Restart your Mac by going to the Apple menu and Restart.
4. When your computer restarted, open Terminal (Applications / Utilities or you can use Spotlight) and enter the following command and hit enter:
sudo mount -t apfs -wu /dev/disk1s5 /Volumes
Make sure that you replace ‘disk1s5’ with the identifier for your system. If asked, enter your passcode. if you do not know this, open Disk Utility (Applications / Utilities or you can use Spotlight) and select your disk (sidebar) and then click the Info icon.
5. Again, in Terminal enter the following command and press enter:
sudo mount -wu /; killall Finder
6. Now go to Finder, click Go and then Go to Folder and enter /System/Library and click Go.
7. Click Desktop Pictures folder
8. There you will see a lot of images. Find Catalina.heic and rename this file like Catalina-original.heic, (just in case if you want to change it back).
9. Now copy and paste the heic image that we created (step # 2) in here (System > Library >Desktop Pictures)
10. Again open the Terminal app and enter the following code and hit enter:
diskutil apfs updatePreboot /
Wait until the Terminal app completes the process.
11. Restart your Mac, and now you will see that your login wallpaper is changed.
Important: Now, let’s re-enable System Integrity Protection as this will help protect your Mac from malicious software. Here is how:
- Restart your Mac in Recovery Mode (see the step above #3)
- Open the terminal and enter the following command and hit enter:
csrutil enable
Restart your computer. Now System Integration Protection is enabled. You can check this by going to the System Information app (Applications / Utilities). Click Software and check to see if you see this “System Integrity Protection: Enabled”
Too complicate for a layman like me, pls make this user friendly as if you just update any wall paper on Mac, pls….
Unfortunately, due to numerous changes to core system functionality in MacOS Catalina, this is the only way to change the login screen background.
Sorry I’m new to Mac. Can you please tell me how do I find out what is the “identifier” of my system, alike disk1s5?
+1 to this question. I’m not new to Mac, but when I do a “df” in my terminal window I see:
/dev/disk1s1 mounted on “/”
/dev/disk1s2 mounted on “/System/Volumes/Data”
/dev/disk1s5 mounted on “/System/Volumes/Data/home”
Open Disk Utility (Applications / Utilities or you can use Spotlight) and select your disk (sidebar) and then click the Info icon.
Its just the name of your system volume. You should see it in Finder. In my case it was MacProSSD
I agree with the others, the directions for doing this on macOS Mojave was far simpler
1. Find an image or photo to use as a background photo. It is important that this picture should fit the resolution of your screen. Thus you may want to know your screen resolution. You can find that easily. On your Mac, go to Apple Menu > About This Mac and click the Displays tap. you may find it to be 1280×800.
2. Save this image on the desktop as a .jpg file. You can also find images online.
3. And then rename your image as Mojave.heic (HEIC: High Efficiency Image Format).
4. Now, Open Finder and go to
Go > Go to Folder… (or press Command-Shift-G)
5. Enter /Library/Desktop Pictures/ and then click Go.
6. Find the Mojave.heic file.
7. As a backup method, change its name to something like Original-Mojave.heic (so you can change back later). You may have to enter your admin password.
8. Drag the new Mojave.heic image into the folder and exit (copy and paste). Again you will have to enter your admin password.
9. Restart your computer
10. Done. You’ll see your new background.
Yeah, welcome to Catalina. Apple is bending over backwards to prevent customizations and branding. Such a waste of time for something we should have every right to change on our own. MS is doing similar things in OS10 as well.
Thanks this was well documented and easy to follow, I know have my Apple II startup screen back 🙂
Simple, easy to follow instructions. Thanks🤓
Wow! This is complicated, however, I have talked to Apple care numerous times and the “expert” tells me they don’t know how. Even went in person to get my computer fixed and asked to change this, several of them tried and were unsuccessful. Soooooo at least you have given some directions. Unsure if I am able but will try.
So when I load the terminal screen, before the command can be entered, it is prefixed on my Catalina iMac with “bash-3.2#” and entering the command “crsutil disable” after that throws up an error that it cannot find crsutil.
csrutil disable
not: crsutil disable
Worked like a charm. Thank you kindly!
How do I replace ‘disk1s5’ with the identifier for my system?
I was unable to rename the .heic file or paste the replacement one into /Desktop Pictures folder…?
Any ideas?
you may have missed a step or you may have encountered the same issue I did – see my post to see what I did to get this to work.
Thank you for the detailed post. Unfortunately I am just too chicken to try this. WAY over my head, and I have used Macs since the original Mac with 128K of memory came out. Each time Apple changes the OS it just gets let reliable, more complex and less intuitive. The original programmers were Very focused on intuitive user interfaces. How about just a “set startup screen”. Apple has forgotten their roots.
Thank you so much! Worked like a charm 🙂
after: “sudo mount -t apfs -wu /dev/disk1s5 /Volumes” command not found. Verified identifier of disk. Any ideas?
You need to enter “sudo mount -t apfs -wu /dev/YOURSYSTEMDISKNAMEHERE/Volumes”
In my case it was “sudo mount -t apfs -wu /dev/MacProSSD /Volumes”
Thanks so much for this. What a palava! In step 9 I had an issue which is not documented here: After renaming the Catalina-heic file to Catalina-original.heic I moved the new Catalina.heic file into the directory but got an error message to say that there was a newer version of this file in the directory and did I want to replace it. I chose to keep both which resulted in the new file being renamed CatalinaCopy.heic. I then renamed that file Catalina.heic and all is well.
This worked great for me except for one thing. After changing the image, the icons for “Restart” and “Shutdown” on the login screen are all white. Similarly, the characters inside the password box are white as well. Has anyone else encountered this — and do you have ideas for how to fix it? Thanks.
This is ridiculously complex for something that should be a simple job. The wisest thing to do is to install Windows 10 using Bootcamp and kick yourself for buying a Mac in the first place, like I do every day.
It works! Thank you! 😀