Save Windows Spotlight Images Windows 10

One of the new features in Windows 10 is the Windows Spotlight lock screen that lets you set your lock screen on your PC or tablet to auto-rotate through a preselected group of photos picked by Microsoft. If you havenโ€™t already seen it you can go to Settings, Personalization, and select the Lock Screen tab. In the drop-down select Windows Spotlight. Next time you lock your machine (Windows + L) or have the machine wake up from sleep youโ€™ll see a stunning image.

Windows Spotlight images give you a fresh Lock screen experience every time you need to sign in to Windows 10, but you also find and set these images as your desktop background. When the feature is enabled, new images download automatically every day on your PC, tablet, and phone allowing you to always have a fresh experience every time you unlock your device.

Enable Windows Spotlight on the Lock screen

In order to download those beautiful Windows Spotlight images curated by Bing, the first thing you need to do is to enable the personalization feature on your computer.

Log in to your Windows 10 account

  • Go to the Start menu and select Settings
  • Click Personalization then Lock Screen.
  • Or you can right-click on Desktop and select Personalization then select Lock Screen.
  • From the Background drop-down menu, select the Windows spotlight.

Windows Spotlight

Use the Windows key + L keyboard shortcut to lock your computer and view the Spotlight images. Once you enable the feature at different times of the day, you will see different images on the Lock screen.

Find Windows Spotlight images on Windows 10

After enabling the feature and images begin to download automatically on your PC. And these images will be stored in a special folder inside your user profile folder. To find the Windows Spotlight images that you can later use on your desktop do the following:

  • Open Windows File Explorer,
  • Switch to the โ€˜Viewโ€™ tab and check the box adjacent to the title โ€˜Hidden Itemsโ€™ to force your Windows 10 OS to display all hidden files and folders and drives

show hidden items on windows 10

Then pressย Windows key + Rย thenย type:ย %userprofile% and hit Enter andย navigate to the following address:

AppData\Local\Packages\Microsoft.Windows.ContentDeliveryManager_cw5n1h2txyewy\LocalState\Asset

Inside the Assets folder, you will find a number of files with random and complicated names without extensions and different sizes. Some of these files contain the Windows Spotlight images that appear on your Lock screen. In order to get the correct images, while on the View tab, select Details. Use the Sort by button to sort files by Size.

windows spotlight image location

All of these unknown files are actually JPEG files, but many of them are not part of the Spotlight feature. You want to select only the large files those files that are 400KB or larger, right-click the selection and click Copy. Create a folder on your Pictures folder or in another location and name it Spotlight images or anything. Inside the folder, right-click and select Paste.

Rename and convert Spotlight images using the command prompt

On File Explorer, click File. Click the Open command prompt As Administrator. If you are using windows 10 or later you will get the option to open PowerShell in place of the command prompt. (open PowerShell and perform the command below)

On Command Prompt you can now easily convert the files to JPEG by using the rename command. Type the following command and press Enter:

Ren *.* *.jpg

rename spotlight images

If you want to give each image a more meaningful name. Then select the image, press F2 and rename the file to anything you like. Then change the View to Extra Large so I can see the images, you may need to do some tidy up as some images are not wallpapers so go ahead.

Set Windows Spotlight images as desktop background on Windows 10

Once you have changed the file format for the images you can set a specific image as the Lock screen. Also, you can use them as your desktop background. Or even create a Windows Theme with a collection of your favorite Spotlight images that you can then use on other devices or share with friends.

Right-click on Desktop and select ย Personalization. Then Click Background and select Picture to use only one image or Slideshow to use multiple images as desktop background. Click Browse to find and set the images.

select spotlight image as wallpaper

Select the image and click ok to save changes and minimize windows. Here enjoy the spotlight image on your desktop wallpaper.

You can create your very own Windows Theme click Themes. Click the Theme settings link ย Right-click the Unsaved Theme. Click Save theme for sharing. Once you have created the new theme, you can simply double-click the desk theme pack file on another computer to install the new images.

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Steve Ballmer
With over 7 years of experience in the IT industry, I have experience in IT support, helpdesk, sysadmin, network admin, and cloud computing. Certified in Microsoft Technologies (MCTS and MCSA) and also Cisco Certified Professional in Routing and Switching.

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