4

Where are the images from Windows Spotlight coming from? Where are they being saved on my system? Is there any way for me to point this at my own source of images?

Michael S.
  • 4,217
Zoredache
  • 20,438

3 Answers3

5

The pictures are located at:

C:\Users{your_name}\AppData\Local\Packages\Microsoft.Windows.ContentDeliveryManager_cw5n1h2txyewy\LocalState\Assets

And they will look like this: enter image description here

Renaming these to .JPG will reveal it as a picture but I am not sure there is a way to generate the names. So the only idea I have is to note the existing names and rename your own pictures to match them...

TomEus
  • 3,793
1

Ditto @TomEus

Here is a script to save them to a sub-folder in your local Pictures folder. Also works for through build 22631.2428.

Get-ChildItem $env:LOCALAPPDATA\Packages\Microsoft.Windows.ContentDeliveryManager_cw5n1h2txyewy\LocalState\Assets |
ForEach-Object ($file) {
    if ((Test-Path -Path "$env:USERPROFILE\Pictures\Windows Spotlight\$($_.Name).jpg") -eq $false) {
        Copy-Item -Path $_.FullName -Destination "$env:USERPROFILE\Pictures\Windows Spotlight\$($_.Name).jpg" #-WhatIf
        }
    }
Start-Process explorer -ArgumentList "$env:USERPROFILE\Pictures\Windows Spotlight"
Zoredache
  • 20,438
GAn8tive
  • 11
1

I've been hunting for some days for the elusive Spotlight images, and read hosts of posts including the one above, with little success, until I took a different approach.

For what it's worth, the images are no longer in

C:\Users{your_name}\AppData\Local\Packages\Microsoft.Windows.ContentDeliveryManager_cw5n1h2txyewy\LocalState\Assets

as stated above - I'm running 23H2.

I have found them however:

Portrait and Landscape are in different folders, each day having two new folders with different names:

LANDSCAPE

c:\Users{your_name}\AppData\Local\Packages\MicrosoftWindows.Client.CBS_cw5n1h2txyewy\AC\INetCache\GIUJT0FD\

PORTRAIT

c:\Users{your_name}\AppData\Local\Packages\MicrosoftWindows.Client.CBS_cw5n1h2txyewy\AC\INetCache\N4W7A5N4\

HOW I FOUND THEM I have the app Everything installed, and I used Total Commander to display all files created today. When my desktop changed a new pair of files was added. Interestingly, the names of the files contain the info about the image that someone else was looking for, eg

d04302d3-0bc9-5d57-2eaa-897be9bf4236_desktop-b017_ds_rovinjoldtowncroatia_gettyimages-1698558920_1080x1920[1]

Yes, I realise I answered a 9 year old thread, but it was a thread that constantly came up in many of my searches, and I'd have to get some amount of points to be recognised as a contributer, so why not buck the trend and put the solution where Google thinks the answer is.

[EDIT: I notice that today didn't get new folders, but the contents of an existing subfolder got replaced. Just an observation.]

[UPDATE: A search today found another location for Spotlight images (I think) as they are copies of the actual Spotlight images, down to the exact size, but with completely different naming.

C:\Users\Administrator\AppData\Local\Packages\MicrosoftWindows.Client.CBS_cw5n1h2txyewy\LocalCache\Microsoft\IrisService\2354554297012245268\

Dennis Bartlett
  • 11