Watch Faces How to put your own picture on an Apple Watch face
Pick the photo in Watch Faces, set your watch size, set Time to Hidden and tap Export to Photos. Then choose that photo for the Photos face in Apple's Watch app. The app fills the watch screen with the center of your picture, so you never see stretching or black bars.
★ 4.2 (5) Can you put a picture on an Apple Watch face?
Yes. The Apple Watch has a built-in Photos face that shows a picture from your library behind the time. You can point it at any photo on your iPhone, but a phone photo has a very different shape from the watch screen, so the watch crops it and the part you care about can end up cut off.
Watch Faces prepares the picture first. It trims your photo to the exact shape of your watch screen, lets you preview it inside a watch frame, and saves a clean image that fits without further cropping. A sunset shot with the horizon dead center keeps it there after the crop — no surprise cuts.
How to add a photo to an Apple Watch face, step by step
- Open Watch Faces. It starts on the Designer tab.
- In the row at the top, tap your watch size: SE 40mm, SE 44mm, 41mm, 45mm, Ultra, S10 42mm or S10 46mm. The default is 45mm.
- Tap Background, then Photo, then Pick Photo from Library. Choose one picture; the panel shows Photo applied.
- Look at the preview. If the subject is not where you want it, crop the photo in the Photos app and use Replace Photo.
- Tap Time and, under Time Position, choose Hidden.
- Tap the three-dot menu, then Export. In Export Options, pick PNG or JPEG under File Format and tap Export to Photos. You'll see Image saved to Photos.
- On your iPhone, open Apple's Watch app, go to the face gallery, add the Photos face and select the picture you just saved (or an album that contains it).
How much of my photo will show?
The app scales your photo until it covers the whole screen, then cuts the overflow equally from both ends of the long side. The worked example below uses the 45mm preset, which exports at 396×484 pixels.
| Photo | Scale | Part of the original kept | What gets cut |
|---|---|---|---|
| 4032×3024 landscape | 0.16005 | 2474×3024 (61.4% of the width, full height) | About 779 px from each side of the original |
| 3024×4032 portrait | 0.13095 | 3024×3696 (full width, 91.7% of the height) | 168 px from the top and the bottom of the original |
| 1080×1920 screenshot or story | 0.36667 | 1080×1320 (full width, 68.8% of the height) | 300 px from the top and the bottom of the original |
The lesson: a portrait photo loses very little, while a landscape photo loses almost 40% of its width. For a landscape shot, keep the subject in the middle, or crop it to a tall shape in Photos first.
Common mistakes
- Leaving the time at Top or Center. This gives a clock frozen at the moment of export, plus a second, live one the Photos face draws on top of it.
- Expecting a crop or zoom tool. There isn't one: framing is always centered, so do your cropping in Photos.
- Choosing the wrong size. Pick the preset that matches your watch, so the image has the right shape before the watch sees it.
- Looking for the photo and not finding it. If Image saved to Photos. appears but nothing arrives, allow Watch Faces to add photos in the iOS Settings app and export again.
Free exports and image size
Each Export to Photos counts as one of the 5 free exports per calendar month. Free images are @1x, for example 396×484 for 45mm; Premium adds a 792×968 @2x option. The @1x size already matches the pixel count the app uses for that preset, so it looks sharp on the watch.
Questions and answers
How do I add pictures to my Apple Watch face without an app?
Can I put multiple pictures on one Apple Watch face?
Does the photo leave my phone?
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- Apple Watch wallpaper size: pixel dimensions for every preset
- Free Apple Watch wallpapers: browse, save and set one
- How to design your own Apple Watch face with colors and gradients
- How to share an Apple Watch face as a .watchface file
- Why is my Apple Watch wallpaper not syncing, and what do I check first?
- All questions about Watch Faces
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