Sequoia 15 wallpaper with my photo library not working

I have exactly the same problem. I am using a M1 IMac. When I tried setting a photo album with rotating pictures as a wallpaper with Samona it just got the default vineyards picture. Now I have upgraded to Sequoia I tried the same thing now all I get now is Sequoia trees. Come on Apple you have had this bug logged for over a year

I figured out a solution for this, at least for using a folder (rather than a Photos album) for the source of the wallpaper pictures. For it to work, the folder you are pointing to must be entirely downloaded to the device. There is now an option to right-click on the folder and force it to keep them downloaded if it is an iCloud-syncing folder. Once they are all downloaded, all pictures will work for the wallpaper and will replace the Sequoia trees. When the Wallpaper app tries to flip to a wallpaper that is not downloaded, rather than downloading it (as it should and previously had done), it will just kick back to the Sequoias and get stuck there. This may work with photo albums if you have all your photos downloaded locally, but I didn't test that as I only used photos in a dedicated folder (not in the Photos app).

xristosfromgrc wrote:

After almost a year with Sonoma nothing changed with that issue except that now I see sequoia trees instead of Sonoma vineyards…I still cannot use my photo library as wallpaper on my MacBook Air M1.

you can file a bug report / submit your Apple Feedback here: Product Feedback - Apple

I just upgraded to Sequoia 15 on my MacBook Pro 2021 and my desktop picture was replaced by trees. I was having the same problem with trying to get my preferred desktop wallpaper back. I did more research, found this article Customize the wallpaper on your Mac - Apple Support (CA) and discovered that you can drag a photo from a folder on your computer onto the thumbnail at the top of the Wallpaper settings page. So, go to System Settings, then Wallpaper, then drag & drop your photo into the box at the top of the window. Worked for me!

I was not able to get the "System Settings" --> "Wallpaper" --> "Add photo" --> "Choose" option to work. I could choose a photo from my files, but it didn't become my desktop wallpaper. It also doesn't appear to work to drag and drop a photo from Photos directly into the Wallpaper thumbnail box, but you can drag it from Photos to the desktop, then drag it from the desktop into the Wallpaper thumbnail.

I hope this works for the others who are having trouble.

they advertise this feature in the ads they do to push the upgrade but IT DOES NOT WORK

I'm on a MacBook Pro M1. Are you able to add an album from your photo library, or any single photo at all, as a wallpaper? You've probably already opened the Photos app and allowed it to update everything; if not, do that first. In Wallpaper settings, I had to select individual photos, then switch back to the "shuffle" option, and then change the "Shuffle" time to something other than what it had been before (15 min), to get macOS 15 to actually display my photos instead of the default trees. I recall having had similar problems with Sonoma. The OS wasn't respecting the existing wallpaper settings. Not sure what's up with that, other than the fact that Apple really wants to be sure we all see those trees. 🙄

Submitted a bug report. I have little/no faith in it getting fixed. All I can do is select a single photo from my library to be the wallpaper and no automatic changing wallpaper for me! Since Sonoma and now in Sequoia. Unfixed. :(

my workaround: export just desired pics from Photos and into folder on main drive. (I used users>name>Pictures) So no longer in a Photos Library. And not on an external drive.

While wallpaper is now displaying as I expect it will be a bother to add new pics.

good luck to you.

Why do Apple engineers avoid to resolve this I don't understand. It is many years now. If you try to show the feature to the clients, most of them very faithful and supportive, it does not work. What is the point in that? You also get instructions on the guides and help pages and you follow them and it does not work. What's the deal?

some people waste a lot of time to find a workaround but to no avail

I'm getting the trees again. It worked for a bit and then stopped. I can pick individual photos in the shared album and they'll appear, but it never changes to another photo.

Are your photos in an external device? Not that it should matter.......

Mac Mini M4 Pro — same problem.