Set up a screen saver and Photo Frame on your Pixel Tablet

When your Pixel Tablet is locked and charging, it can display a screen saver of your choice. You can display your favourite Google Photos, run an art slideshow, choose a variety of traditional and abstract clocks or use the home controls screensaver.

Important: Some of these steps work only on Android 15 and up. Learn how to update your Android version.

Choose a screen saver

Open your device's Settings app .
Tap Hub Mode Screen saver turn on Use screen saver.
Under 'Choose a screen saver', tap the screen saver you want to use.
To preview your screen saver, tap Preview.

Types of screen savers

Google Photos: Create a photo frame slideshow of your favourite photos. Learn how to choose which photos display on your photo frame.
Home controls: Use the home panel as a screensaver for always-on access to home controls.
Art gallery: Choose curated images and artwork.
Full-screen clock: Choose from dynamic clock faces.
Weather and weather frog: Check the weather with animated experiences.

Choose when your screen saver starts

Your screen saver will only start when your tablet is charging. To choose if your screen saver starts when your tablet is docked or undocked:

Open your device's Settings app .
Tap Display and touch Screen saver When to start.
Choose While charging or While docked and charging.

Tip: To change your Home screen wallpaper when your tablet isn't docked, learn how to change the wallpaper on your Pixel Tablet.

Customise your screen saver

To customise a screen saver, select it tap Customise. To return to the previous menu, tap Back .

Note: Some screen savers can't be customised.

Art gallery

Choose curated images and artwork from Google Arts & Culture, Google Earth and other Pixel users. To change how long it takes to switch images, tap Slideshow speed.

Full-screen clock

Tap a clock style to display it on your tablet's lock screen. To switch to a dark, light or custom theme, tap a clock style

tap Customise.

Google Photos

To play a slideshow of your favourite photos on your lock screen, tap an existing album or make a new one in Google Photos . When an album is highlighted, it will be included in your slideshow. Tap the album again to remove it from your slideshow.

Tip: After you set up your photo frame, tap More to share photos, add a photo to your favourites or move a photo to your archive. Learn more about Google Photos albums.

Under 'More settings', tap a setting to customise your photo slideshow:

Personal photo data: Show or hide information like album name, photo date, location and more.
Portrait Google Photos: Show or hide photos in portrait orientation, or show them side by side.
Personal photo curation: Curate photos from all of your albums or from live albums only.
Slideshow speed: Change how long it takes to switch to the next photo.

Home controls screen saver

To customise your home controls screensaver, you can add devices to the Google Home app, mark them as favourites and customise controls for certain devices. Learn more about the Google Home app.

After selecting home controls as your screensaver, you can customise the way your devices display in the home panel:

Scroll down to the bottom of the home panel.
Tap an option:
- Tap Edit to choose your favourite devices or automations.
- Tap Reorder to arrange how the tiles appear in the panel.

Show additional information and home controls

Once you have selected a screen saver, scroll down to toggle additional information, like smart home controls, time or weather. Tap a setting to turn it on or off:

Show additional information: Turn this on to display time, weather and other information.
Show home controls: Turn this on to display the home panel button on your screen saver.
- Important: If you use the home controls screensaver, the home panel button won't display on your screen saver.

Was this helpful?

How can we improve it?