Where is the current wallpaper stored?

Question

Does anyone know where the current wallpaper is stored in xfce4?

I am using SLiM and I want to symlink the SLiM background to whatever my current wallpaper is so I don't have to manually change it every time.

Answer 1

The are 2 possible locations:

For the user check

~/.local/share/xfce4/backdrops/

Globally check the system wide path

/usr/share/xfce4/backdrops

To share a wallpaper between SLiM and your desktop, rename the used theme background, then create a link from your desktop wallpaper file to the default SLiM theme:

mv /usr/share/slim/themes/default/background.jpg{,.bck}
ln -s /path/to/mywallpaper.jpg /usr/share/slim/themes/default/background.jpg

Answer 2

Although this is an old question as a recent convert to arch and xfce4 I have also been puzzling over this issue. I finally found a solution and thought I'd post it here in case it's of use to others. e.g.

#!/bin/bash -
#
# define xfce4 xml file that holds info about desktops 
# 
DESKTOP="/home/$(id -un)/.config/xfce4/xfconf/xfce-perchannel-xml/xfce4-desktop.xml"
#
# define xpath that will extract current desktop background file name
# (NB I am no expert in xpaths and there is probably a much more elegant way
#  to do this but this works for me)
#
XPATH='(//property[@name="workspace0"]/property[@name="last-image"])[last()]/@value'
#
# use xmllint utility to apply xpath to file and extract file path and name
#
IMAGE=$(xmllint --xpath "string(${XPATH})" "${DESKTOP}")
#
# display the file info extracted
#
echo Current Wallpaper File = ${IMAGE}
#
# rest of script........
#

xmllint is provided by the libxml2 package.

Answer 3

I know this is an old question, but recently I tried figuring this myself. This is my solution:

Create a file named screenLocker inside /usr/bin/

Put the following inside (replace YOUR_CURRENT_THEME with your theme):

#!/bin/bash
ln -fs $(xfconf-query -c xfce4-desktop -p /backdrop/screen0/monitor0/workspace0/last-image) \ 
/usr/share/slim/themes/YOUR_CURRENT_THEME/background.png && slimlock

then:

sudo chmod +x /usr/bin/screenLocker

and add/edit keyboard shortcut to use command /usr/bin/screenLocker

Now every time you change desktop wallpaper your lock screen will match.

Answer 4

This will list all the backgrounds

xfconf-query -c xfce4-desktop -l | grep last-image

then use the above output to get the path of the wallpaper.

for eg:

xfconf-query -c xfce4-desktop -p /backdrop/screen0/monitorVNC-0/workspace0/last-image

Answer 5

xfconf-query -c xfce4-desktop -p /backdrop/screen0/$(xrandr|awk '/\<connected/{print "monitor"$1}')/workspace0/last-image

This will fetch the connected monitor name from xrandr, then get the wallpaper setting for it.

What a waste of time finding this out 🤣