Hypr Ecosystem
hyprpaper

hyprpaper

hyprpaper is a fast, IPC-controlled wallpaper utility for Hyprland.

Installation

Arch 
pacman -S hyprpaper
openSUSE 
zypper install hyprpaper
Fedora 
sudo dnf install hyprpaper
Manual

Dependencies

The development files of these packages need to be installed on the system for hyprpaper to build correctly. (Development packages are usually suffixed with -dev or -devel in most distros’ repos).

  • wayland
  • wayland-protocols
  • pango
  • cairo
  • file
  • libglvnd
  • libglvnd-core
  • libjpeg-turbo
  • libwebp
  • hyprlang
  • hyprutils
  • hyprgraphics
  • hyprwayland-scanner

To install all of these in Fedora, run this command:

sudo dnf install wayland-devel wayland-protocols-devel hyprlang-devel pango-devel cairo-devel file-devel libglvnd-devel libglvnd-core-devel libjpeg-turbo-devel libwebp-devel gcc-c++ hyprutils-devel hyprwayland-scanner

On Arch:

sudo pacman -S ninja gcc wayland-protocols libjpeg-turbo libwebp pango cairo pkgconf cmake libglvnd wayland hyprutils hyprwayland-scanner hyprlang

On openSUSE:

sudo zypper install ninja gcc-c++ wayland-protocols-devel Mesa-libGLESv3-devel file-devel hyprutils-devel hyprwayland-scanner

Building

Building is done via CMake:

cmake --no-warn-unused-cli -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE:STRING=Release -DCMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX:PATH=/usr -S . -B ./build
cmake --build ./build --config Release --target hyprpaper -j`nproc 2>/dev/null || getconf _NPROCESSORS_CONF`

Install with:

cmake --install ./build

Configuration

The config file is located at ~/.config/hypr/hyprpaper.conf. It is not required.

Configuration is done using preload, which loads an image into memory. Then, the wallpaper keyword is used to apply the preloaded image to your monitor(s):

preload = /home/me/amongus.png
wallpaper = monitor, /home/me/amongus.png

monitor can be left empty to set to all monitors without a set wallpaper:

wallpaper = , /home/me/amongus.png

Monitor names can be checked with hyprctl monitors.

Also can be used with desc: followed by the monitor’s description without the (PORT) at the end.

You may add contain: or tile: before the file path in wallpaper = to set the mode to either contain or tile, respectively, instead of cover:

wallpaper = monitor, contain:/home/me/amongus.png

You can use unload to unload preloaded images. You can also specify unload all to unload all images or unload unused to unload images that aren’t being used.

The reload keyword

The reload keyword allows you to set / change wallpapers without having to preload them. For example, you could have a completely empty hyprpaper config (with IPC enabled!!), and run the below command to very simply set your wallpaper (this example sets the wallpaper for all monitors):

hyprctl hyprpaper reload ,"~/amogus.png"

Running this command again with a new wallpaper would effectively swap the wallpaper with the new one, automating the whole preload, set, unload old sequence.

⚠️
Monitor Specificity Once a monitor has a wallpaper set specifically (e.g., hyprctl hyprpaper reload "DP-1,~/amogus.png"), it won’t be affected by the wildcard (hyprctl hyprpaper reload ,"~/amogus.png").

Using this keyword to randomize your wallpaper

You can also use this simple reload functionality to randomize your wallpaper. Using a simple script like so would do it very easily:

#!/usr/bin/env bash

WALLPAPER_DIR="$HOME/wallpapers/"
CURRENT_WALL=$(hyprctl hyprpaper listloaded)

# Get a random wallpaper that is not the current one
WALLPAPER=$(find "$WALLPAPER_DIR" -type f ! -name "$(basename "$CURRENT_WALL")" | shuf -n 1)

# Apply the selected wallpaper
hyprctl hyprpaper reload ,"$WALLPAPER"

For a multiple-monitor setup, you can use this modified script that randomizes the wallpaper of your currently focused monitor:

#!/usr/bin/env bash

WALLPAPER_DIR="$HOME/wallpapers/"
CURRENT_WALL=$(hyprctl hyprpaper listloaded)
# Get the name of the focused monitor with hyprctl
FOCUSED_MONITOR=$(hyprctl monitors -j | jq -r '.[] | select(.focused) | .name')
# Get a random wallpaper that is not the current one
WALLPAPER=$(find "$WALLPAPER_DIR" -type f ! -name "$(basename "$CURRENT_WALL")" | shuf -n 1)

# Apply the selected wallpaper
hyprctl hyprpaper reload "$FOCUSED_MONITOR","$WALLPAPER"

Make sure to change the WALLPAPER_DIR to your own wallpaper directory. You can then run this script in your Hyprland config with a keybind.

Run at startup

To run hyprpaper at startup edit hyprland.conf and add: exec-once = hyprpaper. If you start Hyprland with uwsm, you can also use systemctl --user enable --now hyprpaper.service command.

Misc options

variable description type default
splash enable rendering of the hyprland splash over the wallpaper bool false
splash_offset how far (in % of height) up should the splash be displayed float 2.0
splash_color color to use when rendering splash color 55ffffff
ipc whether to enable IPC bool true

IPC

hyprpaper supports IPC via hyprctl. Every dispatcher mentioned in Configuration can be called with hyprctl hyprpaper <dispatcher> <arg(s)>.

Additionally, you can get some info about the current state of hyprpaper with listloaded and listactive.

Examples:

hyprctl hyprpaper preload "~/Pictures/myepicpng.png"
hyprctl hyprpaper wallpaper "DP-1,~/Pictures/myepicpng.png"
hyprctl hyprpaper listloaded

Please note all paths have to be absolute (or start with ~).

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