Contributing

This is a basic, updating guide for how to extract wallpapers at their original quality

Windows Computers

Currently we are not interested in Windows default wallpapers as the Windows Wallpaper Wiki has already done an excellent job at preserving them and with much more detail.

For this reason we're more interested in OEM wallpapers which can be found at the following places:

C:/Windows/Web/
C:/Windows/ASUS/Wallpapers (ASUS)

Apple Devices and Software

Currently we are not too interested in modern Apple wallpapers as they can be found at the following Google Photos albums: macOS Wallpapers and iOS Wallpapers

ChromeOS

Utilizing ChromiumOS for Linux and changing wallpapers through the Wallpapers and Styles app, cached wallpapers can be found under:

~/.config/chromium/wallpapers

To obtain the highest resolution possible, run chrome with flag:

--ash-host-window-bounds="0+0-8000x8000" (Google currently only serves images of up to 5000x5000)

Images are encoded in JPEG. Please ensure the file name does NOT end with _small for the highest quality, though certain images may only download the _small file.

It is sometimes possible to access wallpapers before public announcement by starting with flag:

--enable-features=UseWallpaperStagingUrl

ChromeOS Screen savers aid requested

With the above method, the screen saver option appears, but the catalog never loads. The component likely depends on an API Key, necessitating the need for an actual Chromebook. The path for the cached images is currently unknown.

OEM ChromeOS

Wallpapers can be found by downloading a recovery image for the platform, and extracting the ROOTA partition. Images are usually located under:

/usr/share/chromeos-assets/wallpaper/ although some devices may have them under /usr/share/chromeos-assets/

OEM images typically include the codename of the device in the file name.

Stock/Near-Stock Android Devices

The default wallpapers in devices that haven't modified the wallpaper service can be found at:

/system/framework/framework-res.apk --> extract --> /res/drawable-nodpi-v4/

Samsung Android devices  aid requested

Wallpapers can be found in:

/system/priv-app/wallpaper-res.apk --> extract --> /res/drawable-nodpi-v4/ (?)

OneUI 3.0 and older (?) devices store their wallpapers in the proprietary .qmg (Qmage) format which can only decoded with the following ways to my knowledge:

  • Older Samsung Phone: Extract the .qmg file, rename it to a .png and load it in a photo editor for export.
  • PC: Extract the .qmg file and image decoding libraries to decode it into RGB using SkCodecFuzzer
  • DexrnZacAttack's QmageDecoderWrapper can be utilized to extract frames from an animated Qmage