How to set background image without fitting/expanding to fit screen?

Question

When choosing a background/wallpaper image that has a very different size ratio than that of my screen, Android will choose to expand my picture until its height matches that of the screen. In the process, the width gets expanded too, even beyond the screen width if necessary. That means that much of the image is missing (left and right of the center part, by default - but the portion that is visible can be changed). How can I prevent this from happening, or otherwise choose the zoom factor with which my image gets set ?

Thanks.

PS. Android 11 on Samsung Galaxy A40

Answer 1

A solution, annoying but works : Go to Gallery, open the image you want as wallpaper, zoom and pan until it positioned as you wish, then take a screenshot.

The resulting image will have exactly the right proportions (that of your screen), so that when setting as wallpaper Android will not force-expand it to fit some arbitrary criteria at all.

Gallery on my phone allows to zoom and pan at will, except for the fact that it will keep the image vertically centered on the screen as long as the image (even if zoomed) is smaller than the screen height (and similarly, it will keep it horizontally centered as long as the image, even if zoomed, is still narrower than the screen width).

Of course, this creates a second image, which wastes precious memory. But I don't know a better solution right now.

Also, the background of the screen in the areas not covered by the image will always be black. It would be nice of a potential solution would offer to apply any color instead (typically, I would choose one that integrates nicely with my image).