Where does or does a Mac hide old desktop photos? (OSX)

March 9, 2013 3:51 PM

Can I find previously used random internet photo right-clicked as desktop photo?

Have an iMac. Right-clicked a random cute baby animal picture from the internet as desktop, as one does. Later right-clicked another random photo as my desktop.

I never actually saved, not in a way that I understood, either photo. Like in a location I can go to. If I wanted to find the random cute baby animal picture from last month, which would not be possible via the Googles because of there are umpty-zillion cute baby animal photos, could I? Does OSX have a cubby hole where it stores the photos you have used as desktop photos? Or does each desktop photo die once you replace it?

Realize there are the umpty-zillion baby animal photos out there, desktop ready, but I would like to revert to this one if at all possible. (And if not, well, then that’s life.)

posted by Lesser Shrew to computers & internet (4 answers total)

Mac OS doesn't store a copy of the desktop image anywhere, it just stores the location of the image in your preferences. When you use Safari's "Use Image as Desktop Picture" command, it downloads the image to "~/Library/Safari/Safari Desktop Picture.jpg" and points the preference to that location. The next time you use that command, it overwrites that file with the new image. So there is probably not a way to recover the old one short of an undeletion utility.

But if you downloaded the image before setting it to the desktop picture, it might still be around. You can go to "Finder > File Menu > Find" and search "This Mac" for "Kind is Image" and sort the results by date.
posted by Phssthpok at 4:15 PM on March 9 [1 favorite]

Thank you very much, PHssthopok. You have saved me the trouble of worrying that I might mistakenly assume that the previous desktop photo was overwritten, live my live for months thinking I knew the truth, and then somehow stumbling across the photo on my hard drive and feeling like a fool.

Off to google baby animal pictures.

Will look for an unweaned Phssthpok in an easter basket!
posted by Lesser Shrew at 4:57 PM on March 9

If you use Time Machine for backups, you may still have the old version of that file on your backup disk.
posted by vasi at 6:41 PM on March 9

I have folders in my Pictures folder just for this. See picture or group I like on the internet, save it to the folder for desktops, screensaver, etc.
posted by bongo_x at 10:02 AM on March 10