How to Set a Video as Your Wallpaper on Android: 3 Routes

Updated August 2026 · Verified against Samsung's and Google's own support pages and the Play Store listings on 19 August 2026 · the Samsung section previously said the opposite of what Samsung documents

Android has no single button for this, so what you do depends on who made your phone. Two of the three routes are built in and cost nothing. The third is an app, and the four worth naming differ more in how recently anyone has maintained them than in what they do. Every menu path below is quoted from the maker's own support page rather than reconstructed from memory.

Galaxy phones

This is the only route on this page that plays a video file you chose and is documented by the phone maker. Samsung publishes two separate paths, one per screen, and both end in a Trim step.

The home screen works, whatever older guides say. Samsung's own support article, which carries its own date of 7 August 2026 and was read 19 August 2026, spells it out: "To use a video instead, touch and hold a Home screen, and then tap Wallpaper and style. Tap Change wallpapers, and then tap Gallery. Find and select a video, and then tap Done. To edit your video, tap Trim at the bottom, and then use the slider to adjust the video's length ... Tap Done in the top right corner to set the video as your Home screen wallpaper." Worth knowing where the confusion starts, because it starts on that same page: its opening paragraph mentions only one screen, saying Galaxy phones and tablets "also let you set videos as your Lock screen", and it is the step by step section further down that covers the home screen. The instructions are the part that tells you what the phone does. Samsung Canada removes even that ambiguity on its own version of the article, dated 14 May 2026, which gives the home screen its own headed section, "Use a video background for your Home screen", with a seven step list ending the same way. That page also carries the caveat worth repeating: "Available screens and settings may vary for Samsung Galaxy phones and tablets in other countries."

For the lock screen Samsung documents a different entry point: touch and hold the lock screen, enter your security credentials, tap Wallpapers in the top left, tap Gallery, select the video, tap Done to preview, tap Trim and set the length, then Done, then Done in the top right.

Where the fifteen seconds and the 100MB come from. Those numbers are Samsung's, but they are older than the flow above and narrower. Samsung New Zealand's video wallpaper page, dated 9 May 2024 on the page itself and read 19 August 2026, sets them against a different route: "On devices running on Andriod 8.0 (Oreo) you are able to set videos as the lockscreen wallpaper. The Video file should not be over 100MB and playing time must be less than 15 seconds." That is Android 8.0 and the lock screen only. The current article, which documents both screens, states no length and no file size at all. So treat fifteen seconds as a sensible habit rather than a rule: trim to the part you want and let the preview tell you whether it took.

Good Lock and Wonderland do something else. Samsung's Good Lock listing, read 19 August 2026, describes the module in one line: "Wonderland: Create backgrounds that move based on how your device moves." That is a background reacting to how you tilt the phone, not your video playing behind your icons. Good Lock is free, published by Samsung Electronics and rated 4.0 from 9,014 ratings, and it is worth having for other reasons, but you do not need it for this.

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Pixel phones

Set expectations first: on a Pixel there is no way to use a video file, and Google does not pretend otherwise. Neither Change wallpaper on your Pixel phone nor Create and customize the wallpaper on your Pixel phone contains the word video anywhere, read 19 August 2026. What Google offers instead is a set of effects applied to a still photo.

Google documents the path in one line: touch and hold an empty space on the home screen, then tap Wallpaper and style, then Live effects, then Photos, and choose a photo. At the bottom you pick Shape, Weather or Cinematic, with a slider for weather intensity and an Add 3D motion to this photo toggle under Cinematic. Tap Done at the top right, then Next, then Apply. Google's page then says you "can either tap Lock screen or Home screen or both", so unlike some third-party apps, which screen it lands on is an explicit choice.

The device limits are the part most guides drop. Google states them as an Important note on the same page: "The Cinematic effect is only available on Pixel 6 and later. The shape and weather effects are only available on Pixel 9a and later." So a Pixel 7 gets the 3D depth tilt and no weather, and a Pixel 5 gets neither. If your Pixel is older than that, or if you specifically want a clip rather than an animated photo, the app route below is the only one left.

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Most recently maintained

4.3 stars from 12,568 ratings · 1M+ installs · free to install, in-app purchases · no ads · Data safety reports no data collected · by Audrius Koncius · Play listing updated 18 August 2026 · checked 19 August 2026 · Play listing

The most recently updated listing of the four, by a wide margin: its page moved the day before this check, while the most popular app here has not moved since October 2025.

• Good: The listing was updated on 18 August 2026, the freshest here.
• Good: No Contains ads label, which two of the four here do carry.
• Good: Its whole description is one sentence about the job it does: converting a GIF, MP4 or MOV into a live wallpaper, with no keyword padding.
• Good: Its Data safety section reports no data collected and none shared with third parties.
• Con: It sells in-app purchases, and the listing does not say what they unlock.
• Con: The one-line description means nothing is documented before you install: not the formats beyond three extensions, not the length limits, not whether it can drive the home screen.
• Con: 12,568 ratings against 1M+ installs, so the score rests on a thin slice of its users.

Skip it if you want to know what an app does before installing it, because this listing tells you almost nothing. Choose it over Video Live Wallpapers for a listing that is still being maintained and carries no ads.

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Nothing to pay, nothing to dismiss

4.0 stars from 2,336 ratings · 1M+ installs · free, no in-app purchases · no ads · Data safety reports no data collected · by Viatcheslav Ehrmann · Play listing updated 11 June 2026 · checked 19 August 2026 · Play listing

The only one of the four that carries neither the Contains ads label nor an in-app purchase. It also takes images and GIFs, not only video, and its developer is the only one here who explains on the listing how the thing avoids running when you cannot see it.

• Good: No ads and no in-app purchases at all, alone among the four.
• Good: Takes a video, an image or a GIF, so an animated GIF you already have works without converting it.
• Good: Data safety reports no data collected and none shared, and the listing carries a Play Families Policy commitment.
• Good: The developer states the power behaviour rather than just asserting efficiency: "Live Wallpaper will only run when you open your phone. Will stop wallpaper when close your phone."
• Con: The lowest rating of the four at 4.0 stars, from only 2,336 ratings.
• Con: The developer also writes "My wallpaper app does not drain your battery", which is an absolute claim no listing can support, and it sits beside the accurate sentence about visibility.
• Con: The description never says whether the wallpaper can be set to the home screen, the lock screen, or both.

Skip it if you need the listing to promise home screen support in writing, because this one does not mention it. Choose it over the two ad supported apps if you would rather not have advertising inside a personalisation tool at all.

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The biggest install base

4.4 stars from 375,345 ratings · 10M+ installs · free to install, in-app purchases · contains ads · Data safety says data may be shared and cannot be deleted · by ZipoApps · Play listing updated 29 October 2025 · checked 19 August 2026 · Play listing

Read the developer line before the rating. The package identifier still reads craftsapp, which is what older links point at, but the listing is published by ZipoApps today. The rating is genuinely high and genuinely large. What sits against it is on the same page: this is one of the two entries here whose Data safety section says data may be shared with third parties and cannot be deleted, and its listing has not moved in nearly ten months.

• Good: By far the widest reach here, 10M+ installs and 375,345 ratings at 4.4 stars.
• Good: The description names concrete controls: fit to screen, and enable or disable audio.
• Good: The package identifier still resolves, so links from older guides land on a live listing rather than a 404.
• Con: The listing has not been updated since 29 October 2025, the second oldest of the four.
• Con: It carries the Contains ads label and sells in-app purchases.
• Con: Its Data safety section says the app may share data with third parties, may collect data, and that data cannot be deleted.
• Con: The description sells "3D", "4D" and "4K" wallpaper support and claims "Minimal system resource and battery usage", none of which the listing evidences.

Skip it if you would rather not hand a background service data it says cannot be deleted. Choose it over the others only if install count is what reassures you, and read the update date beside it.

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Handle with care

4.4 stars from 79,380 ratings · 10M+ installs · free to install, in-app purchases · contains ads · Data safety says data may be shared and cannot be deleted · by NAINGDroid · Play listing last updated 20 January 2023 · checked 19 August 2026 · Play listing

Included because it is one of the first results for the phrase this article is about, and because its date is the thing nobody mentions. The listing has not been touched since 20 January 2023, which is forty three months before this check.

• Good: 4.4 stars from 79,380 ratings, a score built over years.
• Good: The description names the two controls that matter: adjusting the part of the video, and enabling or disabling audio.
• Good: Still installable and still listed, so it is a real option rather than a dead link.
• Con: No listing update since 20 January 2023, forty three months, a span covering Android 14, 15, 16 and 17.
• Con: Contains ads and sells in-app purchases, and the listing does not say what the purchases remove or unlock. Its Data safety section also says data may be shared and cannot be deleted.
• Con: It is filed under Tools rather than Personalization, and its name is nearly identical to two other apps in the same search, which makes picking the right one by name alone unreliable.

Skip it if you would rather not trust a background service that has had no maintenance since 2023. Choose it over nothing here unless you already have it installed and it works, in which case there is nothing to fix.

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What it costs

The honest version is shorter than the scare stories and shorter than the marketing, and it starts with how the thing runs.

A moving wallpaper on Android is not drawn by your launcher. It is a system service: Android's WallpaperService documentation describes it as "responsible for showing a live wallpaper behind applications that would like to sit on top of it". Each one runs an engine, and that engine is told when it can be seen. The engine API includes onVisibilityChanged(boolean visible), documented as "Called to inform you of the wallpaper becoming visible or hidden".

That single callback is the whole cost model. An app that handles it stops drawing the moment the wallpaper is covered, which is most of the time you are using the phone. An app that ignores it keeps working while you read your email. Nothing on a store listing tells you which kind you installed, which is why one sentence on the Live Wallpaper listing is worth more than any efficiency badge: its developer describes the behaviour rather than asserting a result, writing that the wallpaper "will only run when you open your phone" and will stop when you close it.

Set that beside the claims. The same listing also states "My wallpaper app does not drain your battery", and the ZipoApps listing promises "Minimal system resource and battery usage". Neither is measurable from a store page, and an absolute like the first cannot be true of any process that draws pixels. If the difference matters to you, the test costs nothing: run the video wallpaper for a day, run a still image the next day, and compare the battery screen. That is a measurement you can make and nobody else can make for you.

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When it will not stick

A wallpaper that reverts after a reboot is a common complaint, and the usual explanation given for it is worth checking before you act on it.

It is probably not your launcher. The launcher does not hold the wallpaper on Android: the system does, through the wallpaper service described above, and the launcher draws on top of it. The only first-party troubleshooting page for the symptom, Samsung's article on a dynamic wallpaper reverting to default, read 19 August 2026, does not mention launchers either. It tells you to make sure the Samsung Wallpaper app is updated through the Galaxy Store, restart the phone, and then check for both system and app updates.

So work through it in that order. Update the app that provides the wallpaper, restart, and check for system updates. If a third-party app supplies the wallpaper, check whether your phone's battery settings are allowed to kill it in the background, because a wallpaper service that gets killed cannot redraw itself. Only after that is it worth suspecting your launcher, and if you do end up changing one, our roundup of launcher apps for Android is the place to start. The wider personalization hub covers the rest of a home screen setup, and if you would rather keep the movement on the lock screen and a calm home screen behind your widgets, our notes on clock widgets for personalization pair with that.

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Checked 19 August 2026: this page named four apps and linked none of them, and its central Samsung claim was the opposite of what Samsung documents. The corrections that change what a reader does: the page said Samsung applies a video to the lock screen only and that home screen motion requires Good Lock and its Wonderland module, while Samsung's own support article gives a step by step path ending "to set the video as your Home screen wallpaper", and Samsung's own description of Wonderland is that it creates backgrounds that move based on how the device moves, which is not video at all. The Pixel menu path was wrong: the page routed readers through More wallpapers and a Wallpaper Studio section, where Google documents Wallpaper and style, then Live effects, then Photos; and Google's device limits, Cinematic on Pixel 6 and later and weather and shape effects on Pixel 9a and later, were missing entirely. The page also dated the feature to "the Android 16 feature drops", while Android 17 is the current release on Google's own list of Android versions and Google gates these effects by Pixel model rather than by Android version, so the version reference is gone rather than bumped. The 100MB file limit and fifteen second clip cap were given as current and universal. They are Samsung's own numbers, but Samsung states them on an older page scoped to Android 8.0 and to the lock screen only, describing a different menu path, while its current article states no limit at all, so the page now says where they came from instead of repeating them as rules. The assertion that measurements across a range of devices had shown battery loss carried no source at all and is replaced by the documented mechanism, the visibility callback that decides whether a wallpaper draws while it is covered. The app the page recommended as the standard is published by ZipoApps, not Craftsapp, carries advertising and in-app purchases, and its listing has not been updated since 29 October 2025, so "these apps are free and ad-supported" was wrong in both directions. Two apps the page named, "Video Wallpaper" and "My Video Live Wallpaper", could not be matched to a single verifiable listing and were cut rather than guessed at. A decision table, an "Our answer" capsule, a dated verification box and this changelog are new.