How to Save Spotlight Images on Windows 11

Have you ever wondered where the background images displayed on your Windows PC come from? Windows Spotlight organizes these images. With Windows Spotlight, the computer regularly downloads new images and uses them as the background for the lock screen. The Spotlight feature also provides tips on how to improve productivity.

Although Spotlight downloads images continuously, the images are not in a form that makes them usable for other purposes. This means that these are not the usual .JPG or .PNG images. We will therefore have to work a little to save them and use them elsewhere.

Therefore, if you want to use Spotlight images or store them for personal use, here is what you need to do.

Locating previous Spotlight images in a file folder on Windows

By default, Windows saves Spotlight images in a folder called AppData. However, this folder is hidden. Here’s how to locate it:

Step 1: Launch File Explorer.

2nd step: Select the View tab.

Step 3: In the Show / Hide group, check the box next to Hidden Items to ensure that all hidden folders and files become visible.

Step 4: Navigate to the Assets folder by copying and pasting the following path into the file explorer address bar:

%userprofile%AppDataLocalPackagesMicrosoft.Windows.ContentDeliveryManager_cw5n1h2txyewyLocalStateAssets

Once you navigate to the Assets folder, you see several files that represent the Spotlight images. However, these files do not have extensions, which makes them unusable unless extensions are added.

Changing the file extension to a usable image file type

To change the extension of Spotlight images and make them usable, here’s what you need to do:

Step 1: Create a new folder in a preferred location on your PC.

2nd step: Select all the files in the Assets folder containing the Spotlight images by pressing Ctrl + A on your keyboard.

Step 3: Copy the files by pressing Ctrl + C on your keyboard or right-clicking your selection and selecting Copy.

To note: When you try to copy the files, you may receive a warning message from Windows that some of the files may damage your PC. The reason is that you move them from one of the system folders and no extensions are assigned. For this reason, Windows does not recognize “file types”.

Step 4: Paste the files into the new folder by pressing Ctrl + V on your keyboard. You can also right-click in the folder and select Paste from the list of options.

Step 5: Select File at the top of the File Explorer window.

Step 6: Click Open Windows PowerShell and select Open Windows PowerShell as administrator.

Step 7: On the new folder containing the transferred Spotlight images, place your cursor at the top of the bar, right click and copy the path address.

Step 8: On Windows PowerShell, type cmd, leave a space, and paste the copied path.

Step 9: Enter the command below and hit enter on your keyboard and it should change the file extension to jpg.

ren * *.jpg

Step 10: Exit the command prompt, then press F5 on your keyboard to refresh the folder.

The images should now be in jpg format and ready to use.

Automatic download of Spotlight images

While following the steps above helps locate previous Spotlight images and convert them to usable files, it can be tedious to do this all the time. Windows 11 does not provide an automatic download feature; However, you can download third-party apps from the Microsoft Store, which does the trick. Here are the steps to follow:

Step 1: Launch the Microsoft Store.

Step 3: Launch the Dynamic Theme app from the Start menu.

Step 4: On the left side of the application window, click the Daily Windows Spotlight image.

Step 5: Scroll through the list of options and turn on the switch to auto-save.

Step 6: Choose the folder where you want to save your images.

After following these steps, the Spotlight images should be downloaded to your PC daily.

Change the theme in Windows 11

Now that you know how to save those beautiful backgrounds that appear on your Windows lock screen, you can also consider changing the theme of your Windows 11 PC.