It’s cliché, but true. The little things in life can bring us immense joy: a baby’s first steps, a perfectly cooked steak, or seeing a beautiful picture as our desktop wallpaper. your. Amirite?
While there are so many Ways you can set your Windows 10 desktop background to rotate the wallpaper over a series of images, there’s really only one option to change your Windows 10 wallpaper automatically via an RSS feed: John’s Background Switcher.
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John’s Background Switcher
John’s Background Switcher (JBS) is the brainchild of John Conners, a software developer and photographer from Scotland. Conners has supported and improved JBS since he first created the program in 2004.
“Over time, I’ve expanded the functionality from the many recommendations I’ve had from people who use it, and now you can choose photos from a variety of sites like Flickr, Google Photos, smugmug,,” says Conners. Dropbox, Unsplash, OneDrive, Vladstudio and RSS feeds as well as your local machine. ”
It is clear that JBS is a fruit of love for Conners. Really, this is the best free development software. Conners recognized the need, wrote a program to fill the void and continuously respond to user feedback. If you use JBS, throw him a bone. (Side note: Conners’ news about his mother’s death? OMG, is that someone cut onions?)
How to use John’s Switcher
Below, we will guide you through the steps of installing JBS, subscribing to the media RSS feed, and start enjoying beautiful wallpapers on your Windows 10 machine.
- Started by Download JBS here.
- Launch the executable and continue through the installation wizard.
- Check the box to allow JBS to run after installation is complete.
- Once the JBS program has opened, select add button.
- Option RSS photo feed.
- Import URL of the image RSS feed you want to get the image from.
- Choose Test and JBS will tell you if it can validate the feed.
- Choose ALRIGHT button.
- That will take you back to the main JBS console. Option ALRIGHT to close the window.
Quickly! Your Windows 10 desktop background will now cycle through the images from the RSS feed you added. If you add multiple RSS feeds, JBS will pull images from all of them.
More settings in John’s Background Switcher
JBS includes several settings for configuring how and when new wallpapers appear. On the main JBS console, look for Conversion options.
- Below Change everything, choose how often you want JBS to rotate the wallpaper as your desktop background. The period ranges from one minute to seven days.
- Below Picture mode, choose how you want the image to be displayed. Conners has given us plenty of options here, including different ways to scale and crop images, thumbnail mosaics, four-picture montages, collages, polaroid stacks, and postcard stacks. You can also choose random picture mode.
- Below Multiple screenschoose how JBS will handle your multi-monitor setup.
In addition to the settings in Conversion options, JBS provides a lot of other options. Choose Than on the JBS control panel and you will see settings for any aspect you can imagine.
Here is an abbreviated list of things you can change through Other settings:
- Autostart on Windows startup
- Display image information including date of image if available
- Draw a calendar on the desktop
- Turn on keyboard shortcuts
- Stop conversion when running on remote computer
- Snapshot size control in montage
- Display captions or titles on polaroids or postcards
- Apply background effects (like grayscale or sepia) to all images
- Enable no drawing area for areas of the screen where you don’t want the background drawn
- Stop wallpaper switching when a specific program is running
If you decide you don’t need to get your desktop background images via RSS, JBS will connect directly to other image sources such as images already on your computer or image sources like Flickr, Google Photos, Pixabay or Unsplash, just to name a few.
Another nifty little feature is that the JBS icon in the system tray turns green when it’s active, so you know for sure it’s working on whatever you’ve asked.
Right click on the system tray icon to access than controls like skipping to the next or previous image, telling JBS to never show a particular image again, checking for updates to JBS, or sending the image to someone via Twitter or email.
And to go back to the main JBS console from the system tray icon, select Setting…
Where to find Image RSS Feeds
Looking for image RSS feeds to subscribe to? To get you started, we’ve compiled a short list of photo feeds. Try these out for some inspiration:
Other ways to change your Windows 10 desktop background
Obviously, RSS isn’t the only way to cycle through multiple wallpapers on your PC. Learn How to use video as your wallpaper on Windows 10go all out with some Wallpaper 4Kor embrace the mindset of less is more with these minimalist wallpapers to reduce distractions. No matter which method you use, your desktop wallpaper can bring you joy.
