How to make an emoji wallpaper on your iPhone

While even Apple hasn’t devoted much attention to it, one of the options it added to iOS 16’s lockscreen upgrades was the ability to create emoji-based wallpapers. If that suits your style, here’s how you can create your own emoji background for your iPhone.

How to make an emoji wallpaper on your iPhone

The process starts the same as it would for any other wallpaper, but introduces some unique twists. Here’s what you’ll need to do:

• Unlock your iPhone, then tap and hold a blank space on the lockscreen until the wallpaper selector appears.
• Tap the blue plus icon to create a new wallpaper.
• Select Emoji in the carousel up top.
• Use the pop-up window at the bottom of the screen to add all the emoji you want to include. There’s a limit of 6, but you can choose from a broad range of categories, ranging from conventional smilies through to flags and abstract symbols. If you need to, hit the Back button to erase entries.
• When you’ve got all the emoji you want, tap X to close the pop-up.
• Swipe left and right on the blank space to swap between different geometric layouts. These include Small Grid, Medium Grid, Large Grid, Rings, and Spiral.
• You can change the background color by tapping the triple-dot icon and then Background, which opens up palette options. Tap X to close this window.
• As with any iPhone wallpaper, you can tap the highlighted fields near the top to choose from a stock set of widgets, fonts, and colors. Make sure these are all readable. If they’re not, you may have to backtrack.
• Whenever you’re ready, tap Done. You’ll be prompted to either customize your homescreen or (by default) make it a blurred copy of your lockscreen.