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Welcome to Software Development on Codidact!

Will you help us build our independent community of developers helping developers? We're small and trying to grow. We welcome questions about all aspects of software development, from design to code to QA and more. Got questions? Got answers? Got code you'd like someone to review? Please join us.

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This suggested edit was approved and applied to the post almost 2 years ago by ghost-in-the-zsh‭.

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How to programmatically get current wallpaper file path?
  • I have written a screensaver program that, in part, uses the current wallpaper for some visual effects. However, finding the current wallpaper in different operating systems and environments is less than straightforward.
  • I've made some progress, but what I've found during searches has not been very helpful¹. So, how can I find the file system path to the current wallpaper in the following OS/environments?
  • ## GNU+Linux
  • 1. KDE/Plasma
  • 2. Gnome (TBD)
  • 3. Unity (TBD)
  • 4. etc?
  • ## Microsoft
  • 1. Win 7 (TBD)
  • 2. Win 10 (TBD)
  • 3. Win 11 (TBD)
  • ## Apple
  • 1. MacOS (TBD)
  • 2. ?
  • ## Remarks
  • Please note that **I don't have direct access to all of the above** (e.g. no Windows 11, no Unity, no Apple systems), but I'd like this program to work on those OS/environments if a user were to run it there, so answers that have been tested to work prior to posting would be greatly appreciated.
  • Also, I'm not sure of what the best way to make/add a **canonical answer** here is, but I'd like to try that here with my answer by accumulating what has been tested/verified to work.
  • ---
  • ¹ It includes abandoned libraries that no longer work, explicitly state they don't support certain OS/environments, and out-of-date recommendations and/or commands that don't (seem to?) work anymore. For example, the command `gsettings get org.gnome.desktop.background picture-uri` has showed up multiple times, but in Gnome, it does *not* give me the path to the current wallpaper; it just points to another image.
  • I have written a screensaver program that, in part, uses the current wallpaper for some visual effects. However, finding the current wallpaper in different operating systems and environments is less than straightforward.
  • I've made some progress, but what I've found during searches has not been very helpful[^1]. So, how can I find the file system path to the current wallpaper in the following OS/environments?
  • ## GNU+Linux
  • 1. KDE/Plasma
  • 2. Gnome (TBD)
  • 3. Unity (TBD)
  • 4. etc?
  • ## Microsoft
  • 1. Win 7 (TBD)
  • 2. Win 10 (TBD)
  • 3. Win 11 (TBD)
  • ## Apple
  • 1. MacOS (TBD)
  • 2. ?
  • ## Remarks
  • Please note that **I don't have direct access to all of the above** (e.g. no Windows 11, no Unity, no Apple systems), but I'd like this program to work on those OS/environments if a user were to run it there, so answers that have been tested to work prior to posting would be greatly appreciated.
  • Also, I'm not sure of what the best way to make/add a **canonical answer** here is, but I'd like to try that here with my answer by accumulating what has been tested/verified to work.
  • [^1]: It includes abandoned libraries that no longer work, explicitly state they don't support certain OS/environments, and out-of-date recommendations and/or commands that don't (seem to?) work anymore. For example, the command `gsettings get org.gnome.desktop.background picture-uri` has showed up multiple times, but in Gnome, it does *not* give me the path to the current wallpaper; it just points to another image.

Suggested almost 2 years ago by trichoplax‭