Live Wallpaper Engine for Windows

Your desktop,
but it's alive.

DesktopHut plays videos and animated wallpapers behind your icons — and adds a floating widget called Island that keeps your music, weather, and shortcuts one glance away.

Free · no ads Windows 10 & 11 MP4 · WebM · MOV · MKV · GIF
DesktopHut — Library
Library
Discover
Island
Guide
Settings
RUNS .mp4 .webm .mov .mkv .gif animated .webp .png / .jpg

Wallpapers

One library. Every screen.

Drop in your own videos and GIFs, or pull from a gallery that's already full of them. DesktopHut handles the playback so your desktop never looks like it's "loading."

Online gallery

Browse first, download what you like

Discover is a built-in gallery of community wallpapers, updated regularly. Preview, download, and it lands straight in your library — no separate site, no manual file hunting.

  • New wallpapers added regularly across every genre
  • One-click download straight into your Library
  • Works alongside your own local files in the same view

Multi-monitor

Every display, exactly how you want it

Run a different wallpaper on each monitor, or span one ultra-wide scene across all of them for a single immersive backdrop. Set per display, or set on all at once.

  • Independent wallpapers per display
  • One wallpaper spanned seamlessly across every screen
  • Per-wallpaper brightness, contrast, saturation, speed and fit

A small widget that does a lot.

Island floats at the top of your screen, on top of whatever's running. Pick a shape, a theme, even your own background — then put it to work.

Media controls

Whatever's playing in any app shows up automatically, with full transport controls and synced lyrics.

Weather, at a glance

Current conditions and a 5-day forecast, right there — no separate app to open.

Focus timer & DND

Start a focus session or a Do Not Disturb countdown right from the Island, with a live progress ring.

Quick launch dock

Drag a file, folder, or shortcut onto the Island and it's one tap away from then on.

Tasks & notes

A real calendar with per-day tasks, plus quick notes and checklists — add them from the Island or from Settings.

Shape & theme

Pill or notch-style, solid or glass, eight color presets — or upload your own background image or GIF.

Performance

Tuned for real machines, not demo rigs

Quality presets, an FPS limit, and a Low Resource Mode for laptops and integrated graphics. DesktopHut also frees GPU and CPU automatically the moment a game or app goes fullscreen.

  • Stops automatically on fullscreen apps and games
  • Adjustable quality, FPS limit, and decode threads
  • Low Resource Mode for laptops and older hardware

Give your desktop something to do.

Free on the Microsoft Store. Takes about a minute to set your first wallpaper.

Questions

Good to know before you install

What is a live wallpaper, exactly?
A live wallpaper is a video, GIF, or animation that plays in place of your static desktop background. DesktopHut runs it behind your icons, full screen, so it looks and feels like a normal Windows wallpaper that happens to move.
Will an animated wallpaper slow down my PC or drain my battery?
It uses some CPU/GPU, like any video. DesktopHut stops automatically when a game or app goes fullscreen, and you can lower the quality preset, set an FPS limit, or switch on Low Resource Mode in Settings → Performance if you're on a laptop.
Does it work on Windows 10 and Windows 11?
Yes, both. Windows 11 supports an extra visual effect (acrylic background blur) that DesktopHut uses where available; on Windows 10 it falls back automatically to a solid background.
What file types can I use as a wallpaper?
MP4, WebM, MOV, MKV, animated GIF, and static PNG/JPG/WEBP images. You can also browse and download ready-made wallpapers from the built-in Discover gallery.
Do I have to use the Island widget?
No — Island is entirely optional and off by default. Turn it on from the Island tab in Settings whenever you want it; it runs as its own lightweight process alongside the wallpaper engine.
Is DesktopHut free?
Yes. DesktopHut is free on the Microsoft Store, with no ads.