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The Mac login and lock screen: what you can change, and what Apple keeps

Published 5 October 2026 · Lucas Viegas · 6 min read

You can change your login picture, what the login window shows, a lock message, password hints and the clock. You cannot choose a background picture for the lock screen: macOS ships no such control, and Apple documents none.

That is a flat statement, so here is the evidence behind it before anything else. On macOS 26.5.2 (build 25F84), the English string table behind the Lock Screen pane contains every label you will read below and not one entry for a background, a picture or a wallpaper. Apple’s own Lock Screen settings page lists the same set. Two independent places to look, one answer. Every control name here was checked against both.

The short version

Yours to change: the login picture, the user list, a lock message, password hints, the power buttons and the clock.
Apple’s: the background itself. No pane offers it, on any macOS version checked here.
The one documented link to your wallpaper is the aerials, which animate as you lock or unlock the Mac.

What can you actually change on the Mac lock screen?

More than people assume, just never the picture. Apple’s Lock Screen settings page covers when the screen saver starts, when the display turns off on battery and on the power adapter, and the switch named Require password after screen saver begins or display is turned off. Then it moves to the login window itself: Show password hints, Show message when locked, Login window shows with its two options, List of users and Name and password, Show the Sleep, Restart, and Shut Down buttons, and an Accessibility Options… button. Apple notes that turning a feature off there disables it for all users at the login window.

The picture next to your name is a separate pane. Apple’s login picture page puts it in System Settings → Users & Groups and documents Memoji, Emoji, Monogram, Camera, Photos and Suggestions, plus dragging an image from the Finder onto the current picture. One consequence is easy to miss and worth reading twice: Apple states that your login picture is also displayed as your Apple Account picture and as your My Card in Contacts. It is not a private choice.

Mac login and lock screen settings, where each one lives, and what it changes
Setting	Where it lives	What it changes
Login picture	System Settings → Users & Groups	The picture next to your name at login. Also your Apple Account picture and My Card in Contacts
Login window shows	System Settings → Lock Screen	List of users, or Name and password
Show message when locked	System Settings → Lock Screen	A custom message in the login window, typed behind Set…
Show password hints	System Settings → Lock Screen	A hint after incorrect attempts
Sleep, Restart and Shut Down buttons	System Settings → Lock Screen	Whether those three buttons are visible at login
Show large clock	System Settings → Wallpaper	On Lock Screen, or on Screen Saver and Lock Screen
Screen saver, and the aerial that plays	System Settings → Wallpaper	Aerials are documented as animating as you lock or unlock your Mac
Lock screen background picture	Nowhere	No control in System Settings on macOS 26.5.2 (build 25F84), and none in Apple’s documentation

Where is the login background setting?

There is not one. The Lock Screen pane has no background control and neither does Wallpaper: what the Wallpaper pane sends to the lock side is the clock and the screen saver, nothing else. On macOS 26.5.2 (build 25F84) it carries a Lock Screen Settings… button that hands you straight over to the other pane, along with Show large clock and its two placements, On Lock Screen and On Screen Saver and Lock Screen. Apple’s Wallpaper settings page words the same choice as choosing whether the large clock appears and where it appears.

The background people describe, a soft blurred version of the desktop picture, is widely reported and undocumented. No Apple page fetched for this post describes it, and it is not asserted here as behaviour you can rely on. What Apple does document is one real link between the wallpaper you choose and the moment you lock the Mac: the Landscape, Cityscape, Underwater and Earth aerials are described as animating as you lock or unlock your Mac. That is the whole of the documented relationship.

How do you change the login picture and the login window?

Two panes, six steps, all of it documented. Locking the screen to check your work is Apple menu → Lock Screen, or Touch ID, or the Lock Screen key on a Magic Keyboard.

1Choose Apple menu → System Settings, click Users & Groups in the sidebar, then click the picture beside your account.
2Pick the picture: Memoji, Emoji, Monogram, Camera, Photos or Suggestions, or drag an image from the Finder onto the current one. Remember it travels to your Apple Account and to Contacts.
3Open System Settings → Lock Screen and set Login window shows to List of users or Name and password.
4Turn on Show message when locked, click Set… and type the text you want on the lock screen.
5Decide on Show password hints and Show the Sleep, Restart, and Shut Down buttons, and set Require password after screen saver begins or display is turned off.
6For the clock, go back to System Settings → Wallpaper and choose whether the large clock appears, and whether it shows on the Lock Screen or on both the Screen Saver and Lock Screen.

Does any of this read differently on Ventura?

Barely, which is unusual for this corner of macOS. The macOS Ventura 13 edition of the Lock Screen page lists Start Screen Saver when inactive as its own row, and carries Login window shows, Show message when locked, Show password hints and Show the Sleep, Restart, and Shut Down buttons under the same names as the current edition. It also has no background control, so the answer has not moved in three releases.

The wallpaper side is where Ventura drifts. The Ventura page is titled Customize the desktop picture on your Mac, the settings reference is Change Wallpaper settings on Mac, and neither mentions a second display or the Show on all Spaces switch that later editions lean on. If you are chasing a control across versions, that pattern is worth knowing, and it shows up again in the post on external monitors losing their wallpaper and in the one on Stage Manager. For the desktop wallpaper itself, the per display mechanics are in a different wallpaper on each monitor, and a rotation that has stalled is covered in the wallpaper not changing guide.

The desktop, at least, is yours.

VisionWall is a macOS menu-bar app for the desktop wallpaper. It turns any public Pinterest board into a live, rotating desktop wallpaper, one masonry composition per connected display, sized to that screen and reshuffled on each refresh: every 30 minutes by default, anywhere from 2 minutes to 2 hours. It sets a normal still wallpaper image, and offline the last one stays. $9.99 once, macOS 13.3 Ventura or later, public boards only.

Get VisionWall

FAQ

Can you change the Mac login screen wallpaper?

There is no control for it. On macOS 26.5.2 the Lock Screen pane’s English string table has no entry for a background, a picture or a wallpaper, and Apple’s Lock Screen settings page lists only screen saver timings, the password requirement, password hints, a lock message, the login window user list and the Sleep, Restart and Shut Down buttons. What you can change is who and what appears on that screen, not what is behind them.

Is the Mac lock screen background just a blurred desktop wallpaper?

That is what people describe, and it is undocumented, so it is not asserted here. What Apple does document is one connection between the two: the Landscape, Cityscape, Underwater and Earth aerial wallpapers animate as you lock or unlock your Mac. That is the only documented link between the wallpaper you pick and what happens at the lock screen.

How do I change my login picture on a Mac?

Open Apple menu → System Settings, click Users & Groups, then click your picture. Apple documents Memoji, Emoji, Monogram, Camera, Photos and Suggestions, and you can drag an image from the Finder straight onto the current picture. Worth knowing before you pick something: Apple states that your login picture is also displayed as your Apple Account picture and as your My Card in Contacts.

How do I hide the list of users at login?

In System Settings → Lock Screen, set Login window shows to Name and password instead of List of users. Both options are named the same way in Apple’s macOS Ventura 13 edition of the page and in the current one, so this is one of the few settings here that has not been renamed.

Can I put a message on the Mac lock screen?

Yes, and it is a documented setting rather than a trick. Turn on Show message when locked in System Settings → Lock Screen, then click Set… On macOS 26.5.2 the sheet is headed “Set a message to appear on the lock screen:”. Apple describes it as presenting a custom message in the login window.

Where did the large clock setting go?

It is on the wallpaper side, not the lock side. Apple’s Wallpaper settings page says to choose whether the large clock appears and where, on the Lock Screen, or on both the Screen Saver and Lock Screen. On macOS 26.5.2 those exact option strings, Show large clock, On Lock Screen and On Screen Saver and Lock Screen, appear in both the Wallpaper and Lock Screen string tables, so either pane can be the one you find first.

Sources

Every Apple page below was fetched on 7 September 2026. The string tables were read the same day on macOS 26.5.2 (build 25F84).

Keep reading

A monitor that forgets

Documented, reproduced and undocumented, kept apart, for a screen that resets.

Stage Manager and your desktop

What it hides, what it leaves alone, and where the settings moved.

Wallpaper stopped changing

The documented workarounds for a rotation that froze, per display included.

A note on the tools that promise a custom login background: they generally replace files inside the system, which is exactly the kind of change macOS has spent several releases making harder. No recommendation is offered here, because none of it is documented.