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The best live wallpaper apps for Android
In the ever-evolving world of mobile personalization, live wallpaper apps have emerged as a dynamic way to breathe life into our smartphone screens. These applications offer users a mesmerizing array of animated backgrounds, transforming static displays into dynamic canvases that reflect our moods and tastes. Join us as we delve into the realm of live wallpaper apps, exploring their features and the creative possibilities they bring to our digital lives.
We’d also like to give an honorable mention to Google Photos (Google Play link) as it has a live wallpaper option now. Additionally, Android 13 added new APIs for interactive wallpapers. You can read more about those here.
The best live wallpaper apps for Android
Cartogram
Price: $2.50
Cartogram is a unique live wallpaper app. It uses your current location and a stylized map as your background. The map changes as you move to different places, so it’s always different when driving around town. There are various customization options, including various colors and an OLED mode if you like darker colors. You also have the option to set this as a static wallpaper for a single location rather than having it continuously move like a live wallpaper. We’ve seen a few gripes but nothing substantive, and the app worked great during our testing.
Borderlight Live Wallpaper
Price: Free
4D Live Wallpaper
Price: Free
KLWP Live Wallpaper Maker
Price: Free / $5.99
KLWP Live Wallpaper Maker is among the best live wallpaper apps. It lets you make your wallpapers. It gives you a WYSIWYG (what you see is what you get) editor. It’s pretty easy to use. Some customization features include a clock, Google Fit data, weather, system info, and your RSS feed. There are also some nifty graphics settings that you can play with. The free version comes with most of the features. The pro version comes with ad removal and some advanced features. It has a few bugs. It’s nothing too serious, though. This one is also free via Google Play Pass if you use it.
Maxelus live wallpapers
Price: Free / Varies
Maxelus is a developer on Google Play with many gorgeous live wallpaper apps. The popular ones include C: Simple, Shadow Galaxy, and Supermassive Black Hole. Some haven’t been updated in a while, but they still work well. What makes these nice is that they’re lightly customizable but look fantastic out of the gate. C: Simple uses Android 13’s interactive live wallpapers API. These are pretty good, although some older ones may not work great on modern devices.
Muzei Live Wallpaper
Price: Free
Muzei Live Wallpaper is a popular Android app that transforms your smartphone’s home screen into a dynamic art gallery. It periodically updates your wallpaper with famous artworks or photos, giving your device a fresh, captivating look each time. Muzei offers customization options, allowing you to adjust blur and dim settings to maintain icon readability. Its simplicity enhances the user experience, offering a visually pleasing yet unobtrusive way to enjoy art and personal memories as your device’s background.
Price: Free / $5.99 per month / $49.99 per year
Reddit is a decent place for live wallpapers. There is a subreddit dedicated to them, but it seems to be mostly for desktops and not phones. However, there are Android apps and many other communities where people ask about live wallpapers and get recommendations from other members. This can give you an idea of where to look for really cool stuff. You can usually find some unique suggestions, although it seems a lot of people gravitate toward simpler designs.
Walloop
Price: Free with ads / Up to $8.49
Walloop functions a lot like a traditional wallpaper app. It’s not just a single live wallpaper but a repository for a whole bunch of them. You can browse various categories, including seasonal, nature, anime, abstract, etc. The app also supports a host of resolutions up to 4k, making it one of the few good sources for 4k live wallpapers. The app has ads and in-app purchases, but the ads aren’t that bad, and the in-app purchases aren’t either. It’s an excellent place to browse for some live wallpapers.
Wallpaper Engine
Price: Free app / $2.79
Wallpaper Engine is technically a companion app for Steam’s very popular Wallpaper Engine. You do need a PC to use this one. Basically, you buy the app on Steam for $2.79, create a wallpaper, and then use this app to port it to your Android phone and use it there. It’s a bit of work, but this is one of the few apps that lets you create your live wallpapers. Plus, with the PC app, you can import live wallpapers others make. It works pretty well and, along with KLWP, is one of two ways to do this yourself.
Water Garden Live Wallpaper
Price: Free /In-app purchases ($0.99 – $2.99 per item)
Water Garden Live Wallpaper is a good one for water fans. It features excellent water-rippling effects, pretty fish, and various nature scenes. The water splashes can be a little excessive. However, a lot of that stuff is customizable. It also has tablet support. There isn’t much to this one. It’s just a pond with some fish and some splashes. It’s just really smooth and looks good. You can pick it up for free. Additional features are available as in-app purchases.
Wave Live Wallpaper
Price: $1.99
Wave Live Wallpaper is a take on a classic live wallpaper from Android’s early days. The wave animation plays in the background as you interact and scroll with your phone. It supports Android TV screensavers, various color and wave shape customizations, and more. We like this one because it’s animated enough to be exciting but not so complex that you can’t see your icons. Plus, it’s inexpensive and one of the few live wallpapers still in active development. This makes it quite a good option.
OEM live wallpapers
Price: Free / Varies
Some OEMs, like Samsung, have theme stores. Usually, those theme stores have some live wallpaper selection. These options are great if you have them because the wallpapers are designed for the specific device that you’re holding. However, the downside is that many of the wallpapers are pretty simple and don’t include super-unique interactive elements like you would typically find in a standalone app. It’s worth checking out if you want something easy and simple that doesn’t require a separate app download.
If we missed any tremendous live wallpaper apps for Android, tell us about them in the comments.