Enable New Tab Page Background Wallpaper Feature in Firefox

This article will help you in enabling a hidden secret UI customization feature in Mozilla Firefox which will allow you to change or set custom background wallpaper on the New Tab Page (NTP). It’s an upcoming feature of Firefox which can be activated and tested right now by modifying a secret preference mentioned in this article.

Following screenshot shows the wallpaper customization functionality added to the New Tab page settings pane in Firefox web browser:

Recently we told you about a few interesting features which will be a part of the upcoming versions of Firefox web browser. Mozilla announced that the company is going to add many new useful features such as tab groups, vertical tabs, profiles manager, native AI features, etc to Firefox.

Following article contains details about all the upcoming features in Firefox web browser:

Firefox to Get Tab Groups, Vertical Tabs, AI Features and More

Mozilla team also mentioned about the background wallpaper changing feature for the New Tab page which will assist Firefox users in applying custom wallpaper images as the background of the New Tab page (NTP).

Finally Mozilla has started working on the new background customization feature and interested users can activate this new feature right now in the latest stable version of Firefox web browser.

Mozilla team has implemented the New Tab page background wallpaper feature in Firefox 126.0 and later versions but the feature is not enabled by default. Since Mozilla team is still working on the feature, it’s hidden and deactivated for general users.

Advanced users can modify a hidden secret preference/flag to activate and enable the upcoming NTP background wallpaper feature right now in Firefox web browser.

If you also want to enable and test drive the new NTP customization feature in your Firefox browser, following steps will help you:

STEP 1: Open Mozilla Firefox and type about:config in the address bar and press Enter. It’ll show you a warning message, click on “Accept the Risk and Continue” button. It’ll open Firefox’s hidden secret advanced configuration page i.e. about:config page.

STEP 2: Now type wallpaper inside the preference search box and look for following preferences:

STEP 3: The browser.newtabpage.activity-stream.newtabWallpapers.enabled preference decides whether the new background customization feature should be enabled or not.

By default, the preference value is set to false which means the background wallpaper feature is disabled in Firefox.

To activate and enable the background wallpaper feature, double-click on the preference and it’ll change its value to True. Alternatively, you can click on the Toggle icon given next to the preference name to modify it.

It’ll immediately turn on the new background customization feature in your web browser.

STEP 4: Now open a new tab page by pressing Ctrl+T keys together or by clicking on the new tab button in tab bar. Now click on the gear or cog wheel (personalize new tab) icon given at the top-right corner of the new tab page to open settings pane.

Now you’ll see a new “Wallpaper” section to apply a background image on the New Tab page.

You can select any desired wallpaper and it’ll be immediately applied as the background on the new tab page.

Currently only following 6 wallpapers are available to select:

• Panda
• Sky
• Color
• Mountain
• Landscape
• Beach

More wallpapers will be added in coming days. Also Mozilla team will add a new browse option to select any desired image to set it as the background on new tab page.

NOTE: All 6 wallpapers are available in both dark and light colors to match the dark/light mode of Firefox web browser. The other preferences/flags available on about:config page i.e. browser.newtabpage.activity-stream.newtabWallpapers.wallpaper-dark and browser.newtabpage.activity-stream.newtabWallpapers.wallpaper-light store the name of the selected background wallpaper for dark and light modes respectively.

A “Reset to default” link is also available on settings page to restore the blank or default white background on new tab page.

Also Check:

Firefox Featuregate: Hidden Secret Key to Turn On/Off New Features

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