Transferring wallpapers

[Meixui]

So I was wondering if I could transfer my wallpapers from my laptop ( where I have all of my wallpapers ) to my new PC ( freshly built ) but the problem is that I want to store it into my external drive plugged into the PC ( still saving up for an SSD ) so can I still open the wallpapers through the external drive and use it?

I already have steam and wallpaper engine downloaded already and had redownloaded a few wallpapers on the PC ( for the meantime ) just that I don't want to redownload every wallpaper since it's in the 2 digit range already.

[Tim]

Steam will always redownload all wallpapers but if you "permanently disconnect" your Wallpaper Engine from Steam, you can instead use local backups only on your secondary machine:

https://help.wallpaperengine.io/en/steam/backup.html

Wallpaper Engine does not require Steam to run, so you can instead rely on local backups only. Simply copy the complete wallpaper_engine directory to another location outside of your Steam folder. If you have previously enabled the automatic startup, disable it first. Then uninstall the app via Steam (so that only the backup of the wallpaper_engine directory remains). You can then copy all wallpaper backups into the backup directory as described in the link above.

However, I would advise against installing Wallpaper Engine on an external hard drive. In the past, users had some problems and crashes with that because external hard drive sometimes can take a long while until they are ready and cause random file access errors. Wallpaper Engine starts up much faster than most programs (also after hibernation) and needs to access its files quickly - this cannot always be guaranteed on an external hard drive.

If size is a factor, pick a few wallpapers you really like and use backups of them but do not rely on an external hard drive for Wallpaper Engine's files.

[Meixui]

Originally posted by Tim:

Steam will always redownload all wallpapers but if you "permanently disconnect" your Wallpaper Engine from Steam, you can instead use local backups only on your secondary machine:

https://help.wallpaperengine.io/en/steam/backup.html

Wallpaper Engine does not require Steam to run, so you can instead rely on local backups only. Simply copy the complete wallpaper_engine directory to another location outside of your Steam folder. If you have previously enabled the automatic startup, disable it first. Then uninstall the app via Steam (so that only the backup of the wallpaper_engine directory remains). You can then copy all wallpaper backups into the backup directory as described in the link above.

However, I would advise against installing Wallpaper Engine on an external hard drive. In the past, users had some problems and crashes with that because external hard drive sometimes can take a long while until they are ready and cause random file access errors. Wallpaper Engine starts up much faster than most programs (also after hibernation) and needs to access its files quickly - this cannot always be guaranteed on an external hard drive.

If size is a factor, pick a few wallpapers you really like and use backups of them but do not rely on an external hard drive for Wallpaper Engine's files.

So using an external drive is a no go huh...
I guess I'm going to have to wait until I add more storage.
well, is there any way for me to pick which file it will redownload or is it random?
when I first tried it with the first few wallpapers it was pretty much random.

[Biohazard]

Steam will always download the wallpapers into the same library Wallpaper Engine is installed to.

You can use a symlink to "trick" Steam, this essentially makes Steam save the files on another drive while *thinking* it's the same drive. https://blogs.windows.com/windowsdeveloper/2016/12/02/symlinks-windows-10/#:~:text=Symlinks%2C%20or%20symbolic%20links%2C%20are,supported%20symlinks%20since%20Windows%20Vista.

You would have to set this up manually though. It's not something Wallpaper Engine does for you due to the potential of messing Steam up when something goes wrong, you definitely want to close Wallpaper Engine and Steam before attempting this.

[Tim]

Originally posted by Shiro Iki:

So using an external drive is a no go huh...

I wouldn't say it's a no-go, you can definitely try but I just wanted to warn you that some people have had issues with that kind of setup in the past but it really depends on the external hard disk itself.

[Meixui]

Originally posted by Biohazard:

Steam will always download the wallpapers into the same library Wallpaper Engine is installed to.

You can use a symlink to "trick" Steam, this essentially makes Steam save the files on another drive while *thinking* it's the same drive. https://blogs.windows.com/windowsdeveloper/2016/12/02/symlinks-windows-10/#:~:text=Symlinks%2C%20or%20symbolic%20links%2C%20are,supported%20symlinks%20since%20Windows%20Vista.

You would have to set this up manually though. It's not something Wallpaper Engine does for you due to the potential of messing Steam up when something goes wrong, you definitely want to close Wallpaper Engine and Steam before attempting this.

Oh I didn't mean that I was planning to save it in the external drive ( that was if i was able to transfer them from the other computer but I'm giving that up )
I was just wondering if I can somehow pick which wallpaper is going to be downloaded on the new pc ( the wallpapers I already have ) since it sometimes pick the " heavier " wallpapers instead of the few mb ones.

Originally posted by Tim:

Originally posted by Shiro Iki:

So using an external drive is a no go huh...

I wouldn't say it's a no-go, you can definitely try but I just wanted to warn you that some people have had issues with that kind of setup in the past but it really depends on the external hard disk itself.

Yeah, I know what you mean
I just don't want to risk it myself having it crash ( if it only crashes wp engine then I can relaunch it ) but I don't want it to mess up the wallpapers. I'm not really a techy person so I'd rather avoid that route if it's not a stable one. Thanks for the advice

[水素]

https://help.wallpaperengine.io/en/steam/backup.html
life saver almost lost 90 backgrounds because steam deleted them off one of my computers