What you need
A light and a dark version of your wallpaper in the Photos app. You can make both for free in the iPhone wallpaper generator. Then create two albums, for example “Wallpaper Light” and “Wallpaper Dark”, and put one picture in each. Shortcuts finds the pictures through these albums.
Set up the automations
- Open the Shortcuts app, switch to Automation and tap + to create a new automation.
- Choose Time of Day as the trigger, select Sunrise and set the automation to run immediately, so it does not ask first.
- Start with a blank automation. Add the action Find Photos and filter it to the album “Wallpaper Light”, limited to one photo.
- Add the action Set Wallpaper Photo. Apply it to the lock screen and home screen, and turn off Show Preview and Crop to Subject. Otherwise iOS asks for confirmation every time.
- Save the automation, then repeat the same steps for Sunset with the album “Wallpaper Dark”.
- Test each automation with the play button. The wallpaper should change right away.
Tip: change dark mode in the same step
If appearance and wallpaper should change at exactly the same moment, add the action Set Appearance to each automation, Light at sunrise and Dark at sunset, and turn off Automatic under Settings → Display & Brightness.
If it does not work
- If iOS asks before changing the wallpaper, open the action again and check that Show Preview is off.
- If the wrong picture shows up, make sure each album contains only one photo.
- If the picture looks slightly zoomed in, iOS enlarges photo wallpapers by default. Touch and hold the lock screen, tap Customize and pinch to zoom out until the whole picture fits. The templates are designed to look right either way.
- Action names differ slightly between iOS versions and languages. Search the action list for “wallpaper” to find the right one.
