Put the daily wallpaper on your screen

The wallpapers are portrait because they are made for phones. A new one is generated every day and published at this permanent address:

https://lingomat.net/content/wallpaper.png

If you automate the download, schedule it for 01:00 UTC. The generation batch starts at 10AM in Canberra; 01:00 UTC leaves at least an hour for it to finish in standard time and two hours during daylight saving. If a run fails, the URL continues to serve the previous successful wallpaper.

Android with MacroDroid

I recommend MacroDroid. Create one macro with a daily trigger and these actions:

1. Add a Day/Time trigger for 01:00 UTC (converted to your local time).
2. Add an HTTP Request action using GET and the permanent URL above.
3. Save the response to a file, ideally Pictures/daily_wallpaper.png.
4. Preview or test that action once so the current file exists.
5. Add a Set Wallpaper action and select that saved file.
6. Run the whole macro once to test it end to end.

Android versions and vendors differ, so allow the storage and wallpaper permissions MacroDroid requests. I tried doing this with Tasker and could never get it to fire reliably. MacroDroid has been much less dramatic.

iPhone

Sorry, I do not have a tested iPhone recipe. Shortcuts may be able to do it, but I would rather admit ignorance than publish instructions I cannot verify.

Windows desktop

The portrait images also work surprisingly well on a desktop when centred and cropped to fill the display. Save this as set_wallpaper.ps1 and run it daily with Windows Task Scheduler after 01:00 UTC:

# 1. Configuration
$ImageUrl = "https://lingomat.net/content/wallpaper.png"
$LocalPath = "$env:USERPROFILE\Pictures\daily_wallpaper.png"
$RegPath = "HKCU:\Control Panel\Desktop"

# 2. Fetch the image from your daily URL
try {
    Invoke-WebRequest -Uri $ImageUrl -OutFile $LocalPath -TimeoutSec 30
} catch {
    # If the network is down or the URL fails, keep the current wallpaper
    exit
}

# 3. Use Windows Fill: preserve aspect ratio, centred and cropped
Set-ItemProperty -Path $RegPath -Name WallpaperStyle -Value "10"
Set-ItemProperty -Path $RegPath -Name TileWallpaper -Value "0"

# 4. Refresh the desktop and apply the new file
$Signature = @'
using System;
using System.Runtime.InteropServices;
public class Wallpaper {
    [DllImport("user32.dll", CharSet = CharSet.Auto)]
    public static extern int SystemParametersInfo(int uAction, int uParam, string lvParam, int fuWinIni);
}
'@
Add-Type -TypeDefinition $Signature
[Wallpaper]::SystemParametersInfo(0x0014, 0, $LocalPath, 0x01 -bor 0x02)

On Linux or macOS the download is the easy part; applying it depends on your desktop environment. A friendly AI will be happy to translate the PowerShell into the right shell script for your machine.

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