I’ve been assuming that Microsoft Edge just had a generic grey background for all newly opened tab windows, but a friend has a pretty wild sportscar image. How’d they do that? How can I customize the wallpaper or background image on blank windows in Microsoft Edge?
Microsoft Edge has an attractive and entirely functional default color scheme that works for a lot of people. Like Microsoft Office, it’s bland, inoffensive, and works just fine for most people. But quite a lot of us modern computer users actually appreciate the ability to customize our user experience with different colors, styles, images, and more. There’s only limited customization available in Microsoft Word for Windows, but it might well be more than you realize!
What’s great is that Microsoft has an agreement in place with photo powerhouse Getty Images that gives all of us access to dozens of beautiful images with just a click. Not only that but you can also pick your favorite color and build your own color scheme based on that. Let’s start with the basics, however…
MICROSOFT EDGE: CHANGE BACKGROUND PHOTO
I actually have a photo set as my own Microsoft Edge new window background, and it’s quite beautiful, as you can see:
While reminiscent of the classic Windows green fields background, it’s new and very calm. Nice.
So let’s change it! To do that and otherwise customize blank windows and pages, click on the gear icon that’s on the top right of the active window (not the “•••” button on the address bar). A click reveals a slim window:
Lots of useful and important settings here, actually, starting with quick links: The Website buttons in the middle can be managed, including how many you want shown and whether sponsored links (yes, adverts) are allowed to be displayed too. “Open in a new tab” is useful if you do use these quick links and irrelevant otherwise.
A bit lower you can control whether MSN.com intrudes on your blank window, either taking up most of the window area, some of it, or none. I have mine set to “Headings” which almost hides this entirely, as you can see in the first image, above.
Click on “Edit background” to see what photo options are available.
Notice the “Upload image” option, which essentially means there are an infinite number of different images you can use for this purpose, limited only by what you can create or find online. I’ll chose one of the images from the second row. Clicking moves it to the top of this window:
To apply it and change your blank window background instantly, click on “Apply“.
Quite beautiful, right?
CHANGING THEME AND COLOR SCHEME TOO
Go back to the gear icon narrow window and scroll down to reveal a few additional options:
For our purposes, click on “Manage” just under “Custom theme”.
If you have a photo displayed, the theme will affect the frame of Edge, including the color of the tabs and navigational area. If you don’t have one displayed (the “on/off” button was shown earlier) then this will also define the color of the background too. You can use these in creative ways, having a theme that’s based on the color palette of the photo you’re using, for example.
Notice along the bottom that “The Mist” is actually generated by AI, one of the options if you click to “Discover more themes”. And that’s it. You can enable photos then pick one from the existing library or upload your own, and you can choose a theme to affect the colors used in the Microsoft Edge interface. Darn useful!
Pro tip: I’ve been writing about Windows for many years. Please check out my Windows help area for lots more useful tutorials while you’re visiting the site!