How to Set a Video as Your iPhone Wallpaper
Use any video as a live iPhone wallpaper: save it to Photos, then set it as a Wallpaper Pair in Settings. Works on iOS 16, 17, 18, and 26.
Here is the part most people miss: iOS will not let you set a raw video file (an .mp4 or .mov from your Camera Roll) directly as a wallpaper. The lock screen only animates Live Photos. So the real task is converting your video into a Live Photo first, then setting that Live Photo as your wallpaper. Once you know that, the rest is quick.
What you can and can’t use
A Live Photo is a 1.5-second clip wrapped around a still frame. That is why iPhone wallpapers only “play” for a short moment when you press and hold the lock screen or wake the phone. Your source video can be longer, but you’ll only get a short slice of motion on the lock screen.
A few things worth knowing before you start:
- Live wallpapers animate on the lock screen only, not the home screen. The home screen always shows a still frame.
- The motion plays when you wake the device or long-press the lock screen, not continuously.
- Low Power Mode disables the animation entirely to save battery.
- You need an iPhone with a Home button or Face ID running iOS 16 or later. The flow is identical through iOS 26.
Turning a video into a Live Photo
You have two routes here.
The easy route: Wallpaper Hub. Open Wallpaper Hub and head to the live wallpaper section. Its clips are already packaged as Live Photos, so there is no conversion step. Pick one, tap Save to Photos, and skip ahead to the next section. If you want to use your own footage, the in-app editor lets you trim a video clip and export it as a Live Photo, choosing which frame becomes the still “key” photo.
The manual route: an intoLive-style converter. If you’d rather not install anything beyond what you have, a free video-to-Live-Photo app from the App Store will do the same job. Import your .mov, trim it to the segment you want, pick the key frame, then tap to save it as a Live Photo to your Camera Roll. Keep the clip short. Anything past a couple of seconds gets trimmed by iOS anyway.
Either way, the goal is the same: a Live Photo sitting in your Photos library, marked with the small “LIVE” badge in the top-left corner when you open it.
Setting the Live Photo as your wallpaper
- Open Settings → Wallpaper, then tap Add New Wallpaper.
- At the top of the picker, choose Photos, then tap the small Live Photos album or the filter so only your Live Photos show. (If you don’t filter, a regular still photo won’t animate.)
- Select the Live Photo you just made.
- On the preview screen, make sure the Live Photo toggle in the bottom-left corner is switched on. This is the single most common thing people forget. If it’s off, you get a frozen still.
- Pinch to reframe the still portion, then tap Add in the top right.
- Choose Set as Wallpaper Pair to apply it to both screens, or Customize Home Screen if you want a different image there.
Lock your phone, then tap to wake it. Press and hold the lock screen and the clip should play.
When the motion won’t show
The Live Photo toggle was greyed out. This usually means the file you picked isn’t actually a Live Photo, just a still. Go back and confirm the LIVE badge is on it.
It plays once, then never again. That’s normal behavior, not a bug. iOS plays the motion on wake and on a deliberate long-press, not on a loop. If you want continuous, always-on motion, that’s a different feature iOS simply doesn’t offer for wallpapers.
Nothing animates at all. Check that Low Power Mode is off (Settings → Battery). It silently freezes live wallpapers. Also confirm you’re looking at the lock screen, not the home screen.
The clip looks soft or cropped. A vertical source video frames best. A landscape video gets cropped hard to fit the portrait screen, so shoot or pick vertical footage when you can. Wallpaper Hub’s live clips are already framed for the full 19.5:9 phone display.
A quick comparison
| Source | Animates on lock screen? | Effort |
|---|---|---|
| Raw video file | No | N/A — must convert |
| Live Photo | Yes | Low |
| Wallpaper Hub live clip | Yes | Lowest, no conversion |
If you go the conversion route once, you’ll see why a ready-made library is convenient. Beyond live clips, Wallpaper Hub also bundles an AI generator, charging animations, and a set of matching ringtones, so you can build a full look in one place.
Get Wallpaper Hub on the App Store