Clear Background Wallpaper History on Windows 10

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Any time you change your Windows 10 desktop background wallpaper a history of the 5 most recently selected images is stored.

Currently there is no option to simply clear the background wallpaper image history which can be seen under the “Choose your picture” section under the Settings > Personalization > Background area.

However, this article will show you how to manually clear one, or all of those previously displayed background wallpaper images using the Windows 10 Registry Editor.

 

Remove Background Wallpaper History

To remove or clear your desktop background wallpaper history on Windows 10 we need to access the Registry Editor. Do this by clicking on the Windows Start button (Windows logo) down at the bottom left of your screen.

With the Start menu open simply type in “Registry” (there is no input field, just start typing and it will automagically appear) for Registry Editor. When you see the Registry Editor App appear, click on it and select “Yes” from the User Account Control pop-up window.

Copy and paste the below locational path into the address bar (#1 in image below) at the top of your Registry Editor. You can then save it as a favorite from the Favorites menu at the top of the Registry Editor window for easier access in the future.

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Wallpapers

 

Remove Background Wallpaper History Windows 10

 

On the right you will see string values “BackgroundHistoryPath0” through “BackgroundHistoryPath4” (#2 in image above) which contain the path to the most recently used desktop background wallpaper image.

Simply delete those 5 keys or the key related to the image you want removed and that is it. Note that the default Windows 10 desktop wallpaper images will repopulate this now cleared area. You can also alter the Data paths to the BackgroundHistoryPath(#) to customize the history should you desire to do so.

 

Conclusion

I welcome your thoughts, questions or suggestions on my article on how to clear the Windows 10 background wallpaper image history.

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