Do you want to change login screen or lock screen wallpaper in OS X EI Capitan to background of you choice? OS X El Capitan gives you the ability to change your login and lock screen appearance to your choice. What a login screen usually contains? It normally contains two fields for putting username and password and one wallpaper which is the basic background of that screen. This article is a complete guide to change the login screen wallpaper image Mac OS X El Capitan.
Other than changing login screen wallpaper you can customize login screen by hiding user account in OS X Yosemite or older versions also display contact info on lock/login screen in OS X Lion
Change the Login Screen Wallpaper Image in OS X El Capitan
Choose a wallpaper image and rename it
- You need to choose one image from your computer which you are planning to set as wallpaper, plenty of wallpaper and background websites that offers free hi-res images. It is recommended to choose an image which is in PNG format and good image quality.
- Once you have chosen any background image, you need rename it
com.apple.desktop.admin.png. If your image is in different format like JPG then you can open image to preview and then from File menu Save image as PNG format.
Replace login screen background with your own image
- Now, open Finder and go to the following path
/Library/Caches/ - Here, backup default image that you may want to restore later, just rename it to something
com.apple.desktop.admin.DEFAULT.png. Now, copy your image that you want to use as login screen background. Go to the location where you saved it with the namecom.apple.desktop.admin.pngcopy and paste here in/Library/Caches/folder. - Now when you use Fast User Switching screen, log out or log in you will notice the difference in your login screen. That old blurred image will be replaced with new wallpaper which you wanted to set as backdrop.
Don’t delete the default image, It is important to keep backup of default com.apple.desktop.admin.png file because this is necessary if you want to change your login screen back to the way it used to be.
If you are tired of that image and want to change it or you want old original background wallpaper, all you need to do is go back to /Library/Caches/ in the Finder. Replace it with the original com.apple.desktop.admin.png file and you will retrieve your old login screen background.