iPhone 17 wallpapers: exact sizes, depth effect, and seeds to make your own

Three native sizes across four models

The family splits cleanly: the iPhone 17 and iPhone 17 Pro share a 6.3-inch, 1206×2622 panel; the iPhone Air has its 6.5-inch, 1260×2736 panel to itself; and the iPhone 17 Pro Max runs the largest at 6.9 inches and 1320×2868. All four run at a 3x display scale, so native pixels are exactly three times the point dimensions developer documentation quotes — 402×874, 420×912, and 440×956 points respectively. Export at the pixel numbers, not the points: a wallpaper is an image, and the panel is the thing it has to fill.

Two of those panels carry over from the previous generation: 1206×2622 is also the iPhone 16 Pro's resolution, and the Pro Max's 1320×2868 is unchanged from the iPhone 16 Pro Max. A wallpaper made for either of those phones fits its successor pixel-for-pixel — worth knowing a year in, when the wallpaper you made in 2024 may still be the one you want. Aspect ratios across the family sit between 2.1714 and 2.1741, close enough that a composition survives a move between models with only a sliver of crop at the edges.

The numbers on this page come from the same in-code device table that drives the wallpaper maker's picker, each entry cross-checked against two independent published sources on 2026-08-08; the rest of this guide was checked against the current release, iOS 26, on 2026-08-09. For earlier iPhones — the chart of every verified model back to the iPhone 14 generation lives at the iPhone wallpaper size chart, and the maker's custom size option covers anything older than that.

Depth effect, a year in

The depth effect is the lock-screen treatment where the clock slips behind the subject of your wallpaper, and on all four iPhone 17 models it works the way it has for several generations: when you set a photo, the phone runs subject segmentation on it, and if it finds a subject it trusts — a person, a pet, a statue, a skyline against clear sky — it layers the clock behind that subject's top edge. The decision belongs entirely to the phone; there is no switch that forces it on for an image the segmentation rejects.

Setting it up, as of iOS 26 (checked 2026-08-09): touch and hold the Lock Screen, tap Customize — or add a new wallpaper — and choose your photo. If segmentation finds a subject, the layering appears on its own, and the corner menu of the lock-screen editor holds the depth effect toggle if you'd rather switch it off. One interaction worth knowing: placing widgets below the clock disables the layering, because the subject would otherwise cover them.

When the effect refuses a photo you expected to work, the cause is usually one of three measurable things: the image is smaller than the panel's native pixels, the subject's top edge sits outside the band where the clock layering happens, or the clock region is too busy or too mid-toned to stay legible. The depth-effect checker measures all three against your exact model, in your browser, without the photo leaving your device. What it cannot do — what no site can do — is run Apple's segmentation model, so the final call always happens on the phone. And a flat gradient never triggers the effect at all: no subject, no layering. That is expected behavior, and it applies to everything in the next section.

Make your own: six seeds sized for these phones

Each card below is a recipe, not a file: an integer seed, one of the site's eight original palettes, and one iPhone 17-family model's exact pixels. The thumbnails are painted live by the same engine as the wallpaper maker — nothing on this page is a stored image, and nothing is anyone else's artwork. “Open in maker” hands the recipe over as URL parameters; from there you can export the PNG at native resolution, reroll the seed, swap the palette, or switch the device. The link is the wallpaper.

The six were chosen the way the gallery's entries were: candidate seeds rendered through the real engine onto contact sheets and reviewed by eye on 2026-08-09, keeping a mix of calm washes and stronger compositions and rejecting any render that collapses into a tight dark smudge. Several run dark near the clock's end of the screen — a dark field behind the clock is what gives a light clock its contrast, and you can put a number on that with the checker's clock-band contrast measure, which works on gradients even though the depth layering itself needs a photo subject.

If none of the six lands, that is what the maker's New seed button is for — the space is 999,999 seeds deep per palette, every one reproducible forever, and any device in the picker can wear any of them. Two phones in one house? The matching wallpapers tool renders coordinated pairs from a single seed, exported separately at each phone's exact size.