Delete custom color

Question

how do I delete custom colors and add my picture to background

Answer 1

Welcome LaRuth7,

Thank you for reaching out to Microsoft Q&A forum. I am happy to assist you.  

Building on the earlier suggestions, you might also consider the following options:   

Option 1: Set Photo Background 

• Right-click desktop, select Personalize > Background. Choose Picture from "Personalize your background" dropdown, then click Browse photos to select your image from Pictures folder 

Option 2: Troubleshoot Selection Failure 

• If the photo still doesn't appear selected, copy it again to %userprofile%\Pictures (paste in File Explorer address bar), ensure it's JPG/PNG under 4MB, then retry.  
• Right-click the image in File Explorer > Set as desktop background as a direct alternative. 

Option 3: Verify and Refresh 

• After applying, if needed go to Personalize > Themes and pick "Windows" default theme first, then reset your background—this forces a full personalization refresh 

I really hope that the information I gave above was helpful to you. Please feel free to reply below and let me know if you have further concern on this matter.  

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Answer 2

1

Remove custom colors from the Personalization Settings - Colors section.

Click your Start Button, type regedit and hit Enter to open the Registry Editor.

Click View and make sure 'Address Bar' is turned on.

Paste this into the Address Bar at the top and hit Enter.

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Themes\History\Colors

On the right side, you will see some entries named ColorHistory with a number, right click and delete all those, do not delete the entry named Default.

Close the Registry Editor and then restart (not shut down) your PC to apply the change.

2

Open File Explorer.

Paste this into the address bar and press Enter:

%appdata%\Microsoft\Windows\Themes

In the resulting folder, delete any file named TranscodedWallpaper and also the CachedFiles folder, if it exists.

Restart (not shut down) your PC to apply the change.

Then try setting your preferred background wallpaper image.