Buying a shiny new Chromebook is an exciting experience. With ChromeOS, you get speed and performance at a lower cost. In fact, many Chromebooks are some of the best laptops you can find under $600. One of the first things you'll want to do when you boot up your new Chromebook is change the wallpaper. We already have an excellent tutorial for changing the wallpaper on a Chromebook, but it's also nice to have a list of apps for finding quality backgrounds.
In this article, we run down the best apps, extensions, and websites to find wallpapers for your Chromebook or Chromebox.
Google's built-in wallpaper picker
Choosing a new built-in wallpaper is the fastest option. Start by right-clicking on your desktop and selecting the Set wallpaper & style option. You can also long-press on the screen to set the wallpaper if you have a touchscreen Chromebook. Next, select the Wallpaper option and pick one from Google's various categories. Google's built-in wallpaper app has a wide selection of images. You have cityscapes, landscapes, solid colors, and several quality art pieces to select from. There's a good chance you'll find a wallpaper you like on this list.
Android apps for custom wallpapers
The majority of Chromebooks now support Android apps. Indeed, the versatility to run Google Play apps makes your Chromebook a great education laptop. This also opens the door to several excellent custom wallpaper apps that run on Android.
In this section, we'll take a look at the top three Android apps for choosing a custom wallpaper for your Chromebook. Keep in mind some of the wallpapers in these apps are specifically designed for phones, so a few images may not look the best on the desktop. However, all of these Android apps have a selection of high-resolution wallpapers you can use on a Chromebook without issue.
Backdrops
Our personal favorite Android app for wallpapers is Backdrops. With this app, you get new custom wallpapers each day, with premium collections available for a small in-app purchase. In addition, creators can upload their wallpapers to share under the Community tab. If you like sleek vector-designed wallpapers, this is definitely an app to check out.
Walli
Another excellent wallpaper app is Walli. Walli is a high-quality, selective collection of unique and cool wallpapers exclusively made by artists, for your device. Similar to Backdrops, Walli features a community of artists sharing their work. Change your wallpaper automatically with the new Walli Playlist feature. Select the images you like, press PLAY and your wallpaper will shuffle automatically at your preferred frequency.
Walpy
If you want a wallpaper taken from actual photographs, Walpy is an excellent app. There are a number of great landscapes and abstract photographs from which to choose. All of these photographs are also high resolution, so you know these wallpapers will look great on your Chromebook.
Use Chrome extensions for custom wallpapers
Changing your wallpaper on ChromeOS is incredibly intuitive. Whether you want to switch to a built-in image provided by Google or find your own custom option, the process takes only a few minutes. If you're interested in beautiful artistic wallpapers, check out the Android apps suggested below to choose a new background image for your ChromeOS device.
Bing Desktop Wallpapers Extension
If you typically enjoy Bing's image of the day, this extension will set that background as your ChromeOS wallpaper. Your wallpaper will automatically update to align with Bing's image selection. This particular extension is only for ChromeOS and will not work with the Chrome browser on other operating systems.
HD Wallpapers for Chromebook
The HD Wallpapers extension for ChromeOS offers a beautiful selection of images to use on your Chromebook. You can choose to automatically set HD wallpapers on every restart and refresh every three hours. There's also an option to manually select and set the wallpaper. This extension is also only for ChromeOS and will not work with the Chrome browser on other operating systems.
These are our top picks for grabbing a new wallpaper for your Chromebook. If you want to go the easiest route, just use Google's built-in wallpaper picker. There are plenty of options from which to choose. For those who want a bit more customization, check out the Backdrops Android app and HD Wallpapers Chrome extension. We hope you found a wallpaper that fits your needs!