iPhone guide

How to change the wallpaper in CarPlay

By Ujwal Tandon · Updated 14 November 2026 · 6 min read · Checked against Apple's iPhone User Guide for iOS 27

To change the wallpaper in CarPlay, open the Settings app in CarPlay on your car's display, select Wallpaper, then choose one of the options. The setting lives on the car's screen, not in your iPhone's own Settings, and CarPlay only offers the wallpapers Apple includes: you can't use a photo of your own.

• Settings › WallpaperIn CarPlay's own Settings app, on the car's screen
• Built-in onlyApple's wallpapers, not photos from your library
• Light and darkEach current wallpaper has a version for both appearances
• Icons on iPhoneReorder apps in Settings › General › CarPlay

Change the CarPlay wallpaper

Connect your iPhone to CarPlay first, the way you usually do in your car. Then, using the car's touchscreen or its knobs, dials or buttons:

1. Open Settings in CarPlay

   Open the Settings app on the CarPlay screen. If you're on CarPlay Dashboard and Settings isn't in the recent apps on the left, open the pages of all your CarPlay apps to find it.

2. Select Wallpaper

   Select Wallpaper to see the wallpapers CarPlay offers.

3. Choose one

   Choose the wallpaper you want, and CarPlay uses it as its background.

Apple's guide describes these steps for iOS 27. Because the choice is made in CarPlay itself, you can only change it while your iPhone is connected to the car. The same Settings app in CarPlay also holds Driving Focus, Appearance, the CarPlay Dashboard suggestions and the album art switch.

Can you use your own photo?

No. CarPlay's Wallpaper setting lists only the options Apple provides, and there is no way to pick a picture from your Photos library. iMore noted this limit when wallpapers first came to CarPlay with iOS 14, and Apple's guide for iOS 27 still describes only a choice of the available options.

The choice changed in iOS 26: 9to5Mac reports six colour options, all variants of the new default iPhone wallpaper, and each one changes with light and dark mode.

If you want your car and your phone to feel like a set, do it the other way round: pick a CarPlay colour first, then choose an iPhone wallpaper in the same tone. Deep, dark pictures such as our black wallpapers go well with CarPlay's dark appearance, and every iPhone wallpaper here comes cut to your model's exact screen size. Our guide to setting a wallpaper on iPhone shows how to put it on your Lock Screen.

Light and dark appearance

Apple says CarPlay is set to its dark appearance by default in most vehicles; the dark appearance is made for low light, such as at night. To change it, open Settings in CarPlay, select Appearance and change the Always Dark setting, so CarPlay can switch between dark and light on its own.

The wallpaper follows the appearance. With a current wallpaper, CarPlay shows its light version in light mode and its dark version in dark mode, so you don't need to change the wallpaper for night driving. When iMore looked at these settings in 2020, there was no "always light" option, which keeps the screen from glaring at night.

Other ways to personalise CarPlay

The wallpaper is only one of several settings. Some are made on the car's screen, others on your iPhone while you're not driving:

App icons. When you're not driving, open Settings › General › CarPlay on your iPhone, select your vehicle, tap Customize and drag an icon up or down the list to move it. Icons with a remove button can be removed, and apps you removed are listed under More Apps, where you can add them back.

Widgets and icon look. Since iOS 26, widgets sit to the left of the CarPlay Home Screen, in one to three stacks depending on the size of the screen, with up to five widgets in each stack, according to 9to5Mac. In CarPlay's Settings app you can also give the app icons a Default, Dark or Clear look, much like on your iPhone's Home Screen.

Text. In CarPlay, Settings › Accessibility › Text Size makes text larger, and Bold Text makes it heavier, so the screen is easier to read.

CarPlay Ultra. In cars that support it, Apple's next generation of CarPlay also fills the instrument cluster, with designs made for each car maker. Apple lists personalisation from widgets to curated gauge cluster designs.

Take a screenshot of CarPlay

To keep a picture of your CarPlay screen, for example to remember a layout you like, turn on CarPlay Screenshots on your iPhone in Settings › General › Screen Capture. After that, while your iPhone is connected to CarPlay, taking a screenshot on the iPhone also saves a screenshot of the CarPlay screen. Only do this when the car is safely parked.

Looking for the right picture for your phone as well? The iPhone wallpaper size chart lists the exact resolution for every model.