As I was leaving work today I saw a wallpaper on a computer that I REALLY liked. When I got home, I've been trying to get it but I'm not sure how to find it. I assumed it was the picture that changes daily for win 10 computers. I discovered that the win10 app that does that is Bing Wallpapers, so I installed that, but it has a different picture. Bing has an archive of older pics, but it's not among the recent ones, so I'm thinking the image isn't from bing.

Then I thought maybe it had something to do with win 10 itself so I logged in to win 10/microsoft (I never do), and that was also a different picture. Does every win10 user get the same daily image, or does it vary with each computer? I don't know. I don't think it's a screensaver. I'm pretty sure the work station was win 10, so I'm not sure how else to find the image.

As of today EST Sep 9, there was an image of the Aurora Borealis. There were some dark grey mountaintops on the left of the screen, and strips of green light in the sky in the middle. I even did a google search with those terms, and while many images popped up, none were the specific one I saw tonight.

Any suggestions on what other app or feature might have generated this particular image and how I could find it?

This one?

https://www.reddit.com/media?url=https%3A%2F%2Fi.redd.it%2F7z70ocz2vpl41.jpg

Search for "Windows wallpaper archive", there are hundreds of pictures out there. What you saw could be an old one that is not part of Bing Wallpapers.

Could also make your own.

1) Get good picture of a mountain
2) Set the screensaver of.... whichever one gave those long blurry pretty lines
3) Set black as transparent
4) overlay pretty lines on mountain picture
5) Presto! Make wallpaper!

No, but thank you for looking and uploading. A very brief look showed nothing. I'll spend some time now looking deeper, but I don't expect much. Unless the picture is a repeat, I don't see how it could show up in an archive. Thanks. I could also take any of the ones a google search offers, but there was just something about this particular picture, the arrangement, the shapes, the mood... none of the other pictures has it.

Since the pic appeared today, I'm assuming it's new and hoping to find it somehow.

First, I'd like to apologize if this still isn't the image you were referring to (since another user has already attempted with their guess, and the fact that the image I'm about to show you doesn't really fit the description you gave), but is this the one?

This is the only image I could find that's actually listed under one of Windows 10's many desktop themes. You can find it here.

EDIT: If the picture is indeed new, then it is most likely that you won't find it in that link I gave.

No need to apologize! Don't be silly. Thank you for your help though again, that isn't the image.

I've figured out that the image isn't from Bing Wallpaper, but appears to be from Windows Spotlight. It's the daily image that shows when the screen locks (and maybe when logging in). The images are stored on the PC for a short time but because I stay logged out of microsoft, I don't get those daily images.

Since I now know that the images are stored briefly locally, I'm going to have to try to get it from the work PC. Shouldn't be a problem.

If I do get it, I'll share a copy here.

Ah I see. Good luck! I hope you find the picture. :)

This won't help you much in retrospect, but maybe in the future:

if you hover your mouse over the box/text in the upper right corner of the screen, you get told what place/building/painting/etc. you are shown on screen.

You can then use that info to look up images of that place/building/painting/etc.

With just a little luck, you'll find the exact same picture that Microsoft used.

I did that in the past myself, if a particular image caught my attention.

Thanks. One forum said that microsoft gets many of their images from getty images. I went there, but they had a thousand just for green aurora borealis... no way I was going to look through that.

I'll remember your tip for the future.

Is it this one you are looking for?

You can find locally stored Windows Spotlight wallpapers in your AppData folder. Make sure you can view hidden files, then go to (C:) > Users > [YOUR USERNAME] > AppData > Local > Packages > Microsoft.Windows.ContentDeliveryManager_cw5n1h2txyewy > LocalState > Assets

In this folder, you'll find various files with odd names, but to find those wallpapers, I usually arrange by file size and copy all files above a certain size, say 900 KB, to a different folder, preferably an empty one that you can locate easily. Then just rename the files and add the .jpg suffix, and open them to locate your wallpaper. You may even find others you like.

You will probably get the warning "these files may be harmful to your computer," but these are just image files. Windows will routinely delete them and add new ones, so if you ever see a new wallpaper that you like, dig it out before it's rotated out.

Alas, the boss actually showed up today, so I couldn't use the computer.

Thank you, no.

Problem is that it's not locally stored. As I said in OP, I'm not logged into microsoft so no images are received. In fact, the few pix I have in the folder are from 2021.