Customization is the name of the game on Windows 11. With beautiful themes, wallpapers (including Windows Spotlight), and pops of color, you’d think that Windows 11 would allow you to personalize your desktop to your liking. But setting live wallpapers using GIF files is another resource-hungry beast that doesn’t always get Microsoft’s approval for performance reasons.
How to Add Live Wallpaper in Windows 11 – Animated Wallpaper for Windows 11
Luckily, there are several ways to set GIFs as your background in Windows 11. Here’s everything you need to know about them.
Unfortunately, you can’t set GIFs as your desktop background in Windows 11. While Microsoft doesn’t explicitly mention it, it’s clear that using GIFs as your desktop background is resource-intensive and can be detrimental to performance and battery life. It’s one of the main reasons why the ability to set GIFs as your desktop background was removed in later versions of Windows. However, with the help of third-party tools like the ones listed below, you can still set GIFs as your desktop background, provided you have sufficient system memory and a capable graphics card.
Below are some free and paid third-party tools that will help you set GIFs as background in Windows 11.
