Lock Screen Slideshow in Windows 11 & 10: Turn On, Turn Off, Fix Not Working

To turn on a lock screen slideshow in Windows 11, open Settings > Personalization > Lock screen, set Personalize your lock screen to Slideshow, and click Browse (or Add a folder) to choose a folder of photos. To turn it off, choose Windows spotlight or Picture instead. On Windows 10 the same options are under Settings > Personalization > Lock screen > Background. Here is the catch most guides miss: by default the slideshow barely plays, because Windows turns the screen off about a minute after locking. To actually see your photos rotate, turn on When my PC is inactive, show the lock screen instead of turning off the screen in the slideshow's advanced settings, and choose how long it should run. This page covers setup, the hidden settings, every reason a slideshow does not work, and how to block it on shared PCs.

Ethan's grandmother loves photos of her great-grandchildren, but she rarely opens the Photos app. So Ethan had an idea: turn the family laptop on her kitchen table into a photo frame when nobody is using it. He set the lock screen to Slideshow and chose the family photo folder on OneDrive. Nothing happened. The lock screen showed one photo, then the screen went black after a minute. At Jake's shop they found three reasons: the photos were online-only in OneDrive, the "fit my screen" filter skipped half of them, and the screen-off timer won before the slideshow started. Ten minutes later the laptop cycled through two hundred photos for an hour after each use, then turned its screen off to save power. This page has all of those fixes.

The lock screen slideshow is separate from the desktop background slideshow and from screen savers. Each has its own settings, and changing one never changes the others. If you came here for the desktop wallpaper rotating, see our guide to the desktop background slideshow.

Lock screen options at a glance

All three are under Settings > Personalization > Lock screen. The same page controls Lock screen status (weather, calendar or mail details on the lock screen), whether fun facts and tips appear, and whether the lock screen picture also shows on the sign-in screen.

Whichever option you choose, the clock, date and any notifications appear on top of it, and the same image is used whether the PC was locked by you, by Dynamic Lock or after waking from sleep.

Using a single picture instead

If a moving slideshow is not what you want, Picture gives a steady lock screen. Choose Picture, then pick one of the recent images shown or click Browse photos to use any image on the PC. Windows remembers the last few pictures you used, so switching between favorites is one click. A single picture is the better choice for work PCs, for shared screens where a slideshow might show something unexpected, and for people who find movement distracting. It also uses slightly less effort from Windows, since nothing needs to be read from a folder. Pick a landscape image at least as large as your screen so it stays sharp, and keep the area behind the clock simple so the time is easy to read.

Turn on the lock screen slideshow in Windows 11

1. Press Windows + I to open Settings, or type ms-settings:lockscreen in the Run box (Windows + R).
2. Click Personalization > Lock screen.
3. Next to Personalize your lock screen, choose Slideshow.
4. Under Choose an album for your slideshow, your Pictures folder is added by default. Click Browse to add another folder, such as a family photos folder, and click Choose this folder.
5. To remove a folder, click Remove next to it. Removing Pictures and keeping only your chosen folder gives a focused slideshow.
6. Expand Advanced slideshow settings and set the options described below.
7. Press Windows + L to lock the PC and check the result.

Photos change every few seconds with a gentle transition. Subfolders inside the folder you choose are included, so pointing the slideshow at one parent folder covers all the albums inside it. Windows reads common image formats such as JPG and PNG; photos in formats it cannot display as a background, such as many RAW camera files, are skipped.

Turn on the lock screen slideshow in Windows 10

1. Open Settings > Personalization > Lock screen.
2. Under Background, choose Slideshow.
3. Under Choose albums for your slideshow, click Add a folder and pick your folder.
4. Click Advanced slideshow settings and choose the options below.

The Windows 10 page is laid out slightly differently but offers the same settings. Windows 10 reached end of support in October 2025, and the lock screen features still work on PCs that run it. If you move to Windows 11, your folder choice is not carried over automatically; set it again after upgrading.

On Windows 10, the slideshow folder list also accepts several folders at once, so you can add a family folder and a vacation folder side by side. The Pictures folder is listed by default; remove it if you only want your chosen folders, otherwise every image in Pictures joins the rotation.

The advanced slideshow settings that decide whether it plays

These switches are where most slideshows succeed or fail. On Windows 11 they are under Advanced slideshow settings on the Lock screen page; on Windows 10, behind the link of the same name.

The fourth setting is the shock from the top of this page. Without it, the PC locks, shows one photo, and the screen turns off after about a minute, so the "slideshow" is really a single picture. With it on and a time limit set, the PC becomes a photo frame for as long as you choose, then sleeps the screen. That is the combination that worked for Ethan's grandmother: show the lock screen instead of turning off the screen, and turn off after 1 hour.

Turn off the lock screen slideshow

1. Open Settings > Personalization > Lock screen.
2. Change Personalize your lock screen from Slideshow to Windows spotlight or Picture.
3. If you chose Picture, pick a photo or click Browse photos to use your own.

The slideshow stops immediately. Your folder choices are remembered, so switching back to Slideshow later restores them. If you want no lock screen picture at all, so the PC goes straight to the sign-in box, that is a different change; see our guide to disabling the lock screen.

Turning the slideshow off does not delete or move any photos; it only stops the lock screen reading the folder. If you switched because the slideshow was showing a photo you did not want visible, remove that photo from the folder before switching back, since the slideshow reads the whole folder each time.

Lock screen, screen saver and sleep: how they fit together

Three different features can show something when you step away, and they are easy to mix up. The lock screen appears when the PC is locked, by Windows + L, by Dynamic Lock, or after waking from sleep; the slideshow belongs here. The screen saver appears after a period of inactivity while you are still signed in, and can lock the PC when it ends if On resume, display logon screen is checked. Sleep turns everything off after its own timer. On a PC set up as a photo frame, the order of events matters: lock the PC, the slideshow plays for your chosen time, then the screen turns off, and sleep follows if its timer is shorter than you expect. Set the sleep timer longer than the slideshow time, or to Never while plugged in, so the slideshow is not cut short.

Lock screen slideshow not working? Fixes in order

1. Turn on "show the lock screen instead of turning off the screen". Without it, you only ever see one photo before the screen goes dark.
2. Turn off "Only use pictures that fit my screen". If most of your photos are portrait or small, this filter can skip nearly all of them, leaving one or two on repeat.
3. Make the photos local. If the folder is in OneDrive with online-only files (cloud icon), the slideshow cannot read them. Right-click the folder and choose Always keep on this device, or use a local folder.
4. Remove and re-add the folder. If you renamed, moved or deleted the folder, the slideshow points at nothing. Remove it on the Lock screen page and add it again.
5. Check the battery setting. On a laptop, the slideshow may not run on battery. Plug in, or turn on Play a slideshow when using battery power where shown.
6. Check image formats. Use JPG or PNG. Convert HEIC or RAW photos in the Photos app or your camera software first.
7. Check for policies. On a work PC, or one that was managed before, a policy may block the slideshow. See the block section below for the setting to look for.
8. Re-select Slideshow. Switch to Picture, lock and unlock, then switch back to Slideshow. This resets a stuck slideshow on many PCs.
9. Restart and install pending Windows updates, which fix occasional lock screen bugs.

Most failures are fixed by the first three items. Ethan's grandmother's laptop needed exactly those three.

Slideshow stuck on the same picture

If the lock screen shows one photo again and again, Windows is finding only that one usable image. Check the folder has more than one JPG or PNG; that "fit my screen" is off; that the files are on the PC, not online-only; and that the folder is the one listed in the slideshow settings, not a similarly named one. Also check whether Prevent changing lock screen and logon image is set by policy, which locks the picture regardless of your choice; our guide to preventing lock screen image changes shows where that lives and how to undo it.

A quick test: create a new folder, copy in five ordinary landscape JPG photos, and set it as the only slideshow folder. If those five rotate, the problem is with the original folder's files or location; if they do not, the problem is a setting or policy, and the fixes above and below apply.

Screen turns off too quickly when locked

When the PC is locked, Windows uses a separate, short display timeout, about one minute by default, instead of your normal screen timeout. The slideshow setting show the lock screen instead of turning off the screen is the supported way to override it. If you also want the locked screen to stay on longer without the slideshow, there is a hidden power option called Console lock display off timeout that can be revealed in Advanced power settings; our guide to sleep and screen timeouts explains it alongside the other timers. Remember that the normal sleep timer still applies: if the PC sleeps after 15 minutes, the slideshow stops at 15 minutes too.

To check which timer is ending your slideshow, lock the PC and time it. If the screen goes dark after about a minute, the lock display timeout is winning, and the advanced slideshow switch is off. If it runs for exactly your slideshow limit, everything is working as set. If it stops at a round number like 10 or 15 minutes, the sleep timer is shorter than the slideshow limit; lengthen it while plugged in, and the slideshow will run for its full time.

Windows spotlight: the alternative that needs no folders

If you like variety but do not want to manage a photo folder, Windows spotlight shows a new image from Microsoft every day or so, usually landscapes and landmarks. On the lock screen you can hover or click the "Learn about this picture" or "Like what you see?" area to say whether you like it, which steers future images. Spotlight needs an internet connection to fetch new images. If spotlight stops changing, switch to Picture, lock and unlock, then switch back to spotlight; this clears its cache and fetches fresh images.

Windows 11 can also use spotlight for the desktop background, under Personalization > Background > Personalize your background > Windows spotlight. Lock screen and desktop spotlight are independent, so you can have a family slideshow on the lock screen and spotlight on the desktop, or the other way round.

Spotlight downloads only a few images at a time, so its data use is tiny, even on metered connections. A slideshow uses no data at all, since it reads photos already on the PC. On a PC that is often offline, slideshow or Picture are the reliable choices; spotlight keeps showing its last few images until it can connect again.

Save a spotlight picture you like

Spotlight images are stored temporarily in a hidden folder: %LocalAppData%\Packages\Microsoft.Windows.ContentDeliveryManager_cw5n1h2txyewy\LocalState\Assets. The files have no extensions. Copy the larger files (over about 200 KB) to a folder of your own, then rename them to add .jpg to the end; the landscape-shaped ones are the lock screen images. You can then use them in your own slideshow or as a desktop background. Images are for personal use; they remain owned by their photographers.

An easier route on current Windows 11 versions: when spotlight is your desktop background, right-click the desktop and look for the spotlight options, or use the spotlight icon on the desktop, which can open more information about the current image. For the lock screen, the copy-and-rename method above remains the dependable way to keep an image you like.

Remove fun facts, tips and widgets from the lock screen

Below the photo choice, the Lock screen page has Get fun facts, tips, tricks, and more on your lock screen. Turn it off for a clean photo with no text. This option appears for Picture and Slideshow; with spotlight, some text is always shown. Lock screen status chooses one app to show details, such as weather or the next calendar event; choose None for a clean screen. On current Windows 11 versions the lock screen can also show widgets such as weather and stocks; turn them off under the same page's widgets option if you prefer just the photos. Clean screens work best for a photo-frame setup.

Lock screen picture on the sign-in screen

The switch Show the lock screen background picture on the sign-in screen decides what you see behind the password or PIN box after you click or press a key. With it on, the current slideshow photo stays in the background; with it off, you get a plain color. Turn it off if you want a distraction-free sign-in, or if some photos make the sign-in text hard to read. Our guide to the sign-in screen background covers the options in detail.

Related is the sign-in requirement after waking. Under Settings > Accounts > Sign-in options, If you've been away, when should Windows require you to sign in again? decides whether you see the lock screen after the PC wakes from sleep. For a photo-frame PC in a private home, some people choose Never; for any PC with personal accounts on it, keep it at When PC wakes up from sleep so the lock screen, and its slideshow, stand between a passer-by and your files.

Lock the PC quickly to start the slideshow

• Windows + L locks instantly and is the fastest way to start the slideshow.
• Ctrl + Alt + Delete, then Lock, works on any keyboard layout.
• Start > your account picture > Lock works with a mouse or touch.
• Dynamic Lock locks the PC shortly after your paired phone walks out of Bluetooth range.
• A screen saver with On resume, display logon screen checked locks the PC after inactivity, and the slideshow appears when someone touches the mouse.

For a kitchen or living-room PC, teaching everyone Windows + L is the simplest habit: the PC is protected and the photos come back the moment it is locked.

Choosing photos that look good on a lock screen

• Landscape photos fill the screen; portrait photos get cropped or skipped.
• Resolution at least as high as your screen, such as 1920 by 1080 for a typical laptop, keeps them sharp.
• Keep the bottom half calm: the clock and date sit at the top on Windows 11 and bottom-left on Windows 10, and notifications appear too. Busy areas make text hard to read.
• Curate a dedicated folder, such as Pictures\Lock screen, with your favorite 50 to 200 photos. That gives better results than pointing at your whole photo library, which includes screenshots, receipts and blurry shots.
• Think about privacy: the lock screen is visible to anyone near the PC. Leave out private photos, documents and anything with personal details.

Ethan built a "Kitchen frame" folder for his grandmother, copying in photos from family members' phones every few weeks. Because the slideshow reads the folder live, new photos appear automatically.

Order is not something you control: the lock screen shows photos from the folder in a mixed order rather than by name or date. If you want certain photos to appear more often, put copies of your favorites in the folder, or keep the folder small so each photo comes round regularly.

Prepare photos with the Photos app

Phone photos are often in HEIC format and portrait orientation, both of which can trip up a slideshow. The Windows Photos app can fix both. Open a photo, choose Edit image, crop it to a landscape ratio such as 16:9, and use Save as copy to save a JPG version in your slideshow folder. If HEIC photos do not open at all, install the HEIF Image Extensions from the Microsoft Store, which lets Windows read them. For many photos, set your phone to save in the most compatible format (JPG) before syncing, or use the phone app's export option, which converts automatically. Cropped landscape JPGs look best and are never skipped by the fit-my-screen filter.

Turn an old laptop or PC into a photo frame

The lock screen slideshow makes a decent digital photo frame from a spare laptop or an all-in-one PC:

1. Create a local folder with your chosen photos, or a OneDrive folder set to Always keep on this device.
2. Set the lock screen to Slideshow with only that folder.
3. In advanced settings, turn on show the lock screen instead of turning off the screen, and pick a time limit or Don't turn off.
4. Turn off fun facts and lock screen status for a clean look.
5. Set sleep to Never while plugged in, so the PC does not sleep mid-slideshow.
6. Lock the PC with Windows + L when you are done using it.

Choose "Don't turn off" only for a PC that is meant to be a frame; for a PC people also use, a time limit saves power and screen life. On laptops, keep it plugged in and the lid open, and lower the brightness a little; a photo frame does not need full brightness.

How many photos? Somewhere between 50 and 300 works well. Fewer than about 20 and the same faces repeat within minutes; thousands and favorites rarely appear. Refresh the folder every month or two with recent photos, and the frame stays something people actually stop to look at rather than background noise they stop noticing.

Block the lock screen slideshow (Group Policy and registry)

On shared, school or office PCs you may want to stop people setting slideshows, for privacy or to keep a standard look.

Group Policy (Pro, Enterprise, Education)

1. Press Windows + R, type gpedit.msc, and press Enter.
2. Go to Computer Configuration > Administrative Templates > Control Panel > Personalization.
3. Double-click Prevent enabling lock screen slide show, choose Enabled, and click OK.

The Slideshow option is then unavailable and any running slideshow stops. In the same folder, Force a specific default lock screen and logon image sets one picture for everyone, and Prevent changing lock screen and logon image locks the current one.

Registry (all editions)

Open Registry Editor as administrator, go to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\Personalization (create the Personalization key if missing), create a DWORD (32-bit) Value named NoLockScreenSlideshow, set it to 1, and restart. Delete the value to allow slideshows again.

Slideshow option grayed out? Remove a leftover policy

If Slideshow is grayed out with "Some of these settings are managed by your organization", a policy is set. On a work PC, that is intentional. On your own PC, check gpedit.msc at the Personalization path above and set Prevent enabling lock screen slide show to Not configured, or delete the NoLockScreenSlideshow value from the registry key. Leftover policies come from former work enrollment or from tweak tools. Also check Settings > Accounts > Access work or school for an old account you can disconnect, which often removes the policies with it.

After changing a policy, sign out and back in, or restart, so the lock screen reads the new setting. If Slideshow is still unavailable, run gpresult /r in Terminal to see whether a domain or management policy applies; that cannot be changed locally.

Battery and power: what a slideshow costs

A lit screen is one of the biggest power users on a laptop. A slideshow running for an hour uses roughly what an hour of light web browsing would, mostly from the display. On mains power that is a small cost; on battery it can noticeably shorten the day. That is why Windows does not run the slideshow on battery by default on many versions, and why a time limit is wise. For a desktop PC, the main cost is the monitor; most monitors use less power at lower brightness, so dimming a frame PC saves energy without spoiling the photos.

If you run a slideshow on an OLED laptop, changing photos are kinder to the screen than one static image, which can leave a faint retained image on OLED panels over very long periods. Still, avoid Don't turn off on an OLED screen; a time limit of 30 minutes to an hour enjoys the photos without leaving the panel lit all day.

Privacy on a shared screen

The lock screen is the one screen anyone can see without your password. Before choosing a slideshow folder, look through it as a stranger would. Photos of children's schools, house numbers, car plates, boarding passes or documents can reveal more than intended. On a PC in a public place, such as a reception desk or shop counter, prefer Picture with a neutral image, or spotlight. Also make sure notifications on the lock screen are set to hide content: Settings > System > Notifications > Show notifications on the lock screen, and turn off showing reminders and VoIP calls if you do not want them visible.

Media controls are another lock screen detail: when music or a video is playing, its controls and artwork can appear on the lock screen. That is convenient at home, but on a shared PC it shows what you were listening to. Pausing playback before locking hides them.

Multiple monitors

On PCs with two or more monitors, the lock screen appears on the main display, and other displays usually show a plain or extended version of the same image. You cannot run a different slideshow on each screen from the lock screen settings. If you want photos on a second monitor while you work, use the desktop background slideshow, which supports a different picture per monitor through the right-click menu on a background thumbnail, and keep the lock screen simple.

Projectors and TVs connected as a second display usually go blank when the PC locks. If you want the slideshow on a TV, make the TV the main display under Settings > System > Display, select the TV and check Make this my main display, then lock the PC.

Family and children's accounts

The lock screen belongs to the PC, but the slideshow folder and settings belong to whoever set them; the lock screen shows the settings of the last signed-in user. On a shared family PC, agree on one person's settings for the shared lock screen, or set the same folder in each account. A family OneDrive shared folder, kept on the device, is a neat way to let everyone add photos to the same slideshow.

Children's accounts managed through Microsoft Family Safety can use their own slideshow folder too. If a child sets a slideshow of game screenshots on the family PC, everyone sees it when the PC is locked after their session; a gentle family agreement about what goes on the shared lock screen avoids surprises.

Does the slideshow follow you to other PCs?

Windows backup can remember some personalization settings, such as your theme and desktop background, when you sign in with the same Microsoft account on a new PC. The lock screen slideshow folder is not reliably carried over, because the folder path on one PC may not exist on another. After setting up a new PC, choose Slideshow again and point it at your folder; if you keep the folder in OneDrive and set it to Always keep on this device, the same photos are ready on every PC you use.

The same applies after a Windows reset or a clean install: your photos survive if they are in OneDrive or on another drive, but the slideshow choice must be set again.

Common mistakes to avoid

• Pointing the slideshow at your entire Pictures library, which mixes in screenshots, receipts and documents.
• Using an online-only OneDrive folder, which shows nothing.
• Leaving Only use pictures that fit my screen on with mostly portrait photos.
• Forgetting the screen-off setting, so you only ever see one photo.
• Choosing Don't turn off on a laptop that runs on battery.
• Moving or renaming the slideshow folder later without updating the setting.

Avoid these six and the lock screen slideshow is one of the most reliable small features in Windows.

One more: setting the slideshow on one account and expecting it on another. The lock screen follows whoever last signed in, so set it in the account that uses the PC most.

Accessibility: contrast, motion and readability

Changing photos can make the clock harder to read for people with low vision, and constant motion can be uncomfortable for some. Options: choose calmer photos with dark or plain areas at the top; use Picture instead of Slideshow; or turn on a contrast theme under Settings > Accessibility > Contrast themes, which simplifies the lock and sign-in screens. Under Accessibility > Visual effects, turning off Animation effects reduces motion across Windows. Narrator users can still sign in normally from the lock screen; pressing any key or Windows + Ctrl + Enter starts Narrator there.

The lock screen camera and other lock screen controls

Some PCs let you open the camera from the lock screen without signing in, handy for a quick photo but not always wanted on a shared device. Our guide to the lock screen camera shows how to turn it on or off. Other controls on the lock screen, such as the network icon, accessibility button and power button in the corner, stay available whatever background you choose. The power button there can be hidden by policy on shared PCs if people keep shutting them down by accident.

Still not working? Deeper fixes

• Re-register the lock screen components by switching to Picture, restarting, and switching back to Slideshow.
• Rebuild the slideshow's file list: remove every folder from the slideshow, restart, then add your folder again. Leave the protected SystemData folder under ProgramData alone; it belongs to Windows, and editing its permissions causes more problems than it solves.
• Repair system files with DISM /Online /Cleanup-Image /RestoreHealth and sfc /scannow in Terminal (Admin).
• Test a new user account: if the slideshow works there, the problem is in your profile's settings, and resetting the lock screen choices in your account usually fixes it.

If none of these help and other personalization settings are also misbehaving, a repair install of Windows that keeps files and apps fixes the underlying components without touching your photos.

For IT admins: lock screen images at scale

Policies. Use Force a specific default lock screen and logon image (path to a local or network image) for a corporate look, Prevent enabling lock screen slide show to block slideshows, and Turn off fun facts, tips, tricks, and more on lock screen where available. Intune's Personalization CSP and device restriction profiles offer a lock screen image URL setting on Enterprise and Education editions.

Kiosks and signage. For digital signage, a lock screen slideshow is fragile: it depends on the lock state and power settings. Use assigned access with a photo or signage app, or a dedicated signage player, for anything that must run all day reliably.

Privacy. On shared devices, disable lock screen notifications content and camera access from the lock screen where policy requires.

Lock screen slideshow: frequently asked questions

Ethan's grandmother now walks past a slideshow of her great-grandchildren every time she makes tea. When someone uses the laptop and locks it, the photos come back for an hour, then the screen rests. The new photos family members send turn up on their own. It is a small thing, but it turned a laptop she rarely used into something she looks at every day. That is the point of the lock screen slideshow: once its three or four hidden settings are right, it quietly does its job for years.

Revision note. Written October 2, 2026, rewriting our 2016 guide for Windows 11 with the settings that make the slideshow play. May your lock screen always show someone you love.