Adding your own pictures to the Kindle Screensaver
Here’s a hack to add your own pictures to the Kindle to be used as the screensaver images that get rotated thru.
Adding Pictures to the Kindle Screensaver
- Connect to your Kindle via USB.
- Create a folder named ‘pictures’
- Within that new folder, create another folder name ‘My Pictures’
- Copy any number of pictures you want into the new ‘My Pictures’ folder. 600×800 is the size of the screen display.
- On the Kindle, go to the Home Screen
- Press ALT+Z to cause the Kindle to refresh the book list
- There should now be a ‘book’ named ‘My Pictures’ displayed. Note that it may not be on the first screen page depending on how you have your display configured/sorted.
- Open the ‘book’ to start the picture viewer.
- Cycle thru all of the pictures pressing F (to make them full screen), then ALT+shift+0 (the number zero) to select each one for the screensaver.
IMPORTANT NOTE: These instructions apply only to Kindles earlier than version 3. The Kindle 3 is locked down and does not permit changing the screensaver unless you jailbreak the device – see the comments thread to this post for more details. Â Â April 5, 2011.
December 30th, 2008 at 8:37 am
[…] add your own pictures to the Kindle screen saver. Here is a guide that shows you how to do this: Add your pics to Kindle Share and […]
October 23rd, 2009 at 4:57 am
I don't think this picture trick works on the new International Kindle 2. I just tried "Alt Z" after loading pics on the device, but nothing happens (from the home screen).
February 24th, 2010 at 12:45 pm
[…] add your own pictures to the Kindle screen saver. Here is a guide that shows you how to do this: Add your pics to Kindle Share and […]
August 1st, 2010 at 11:20 am
Yes this trick does not work on new kindell 2 international edition can
December 31st, 2010 at 5:25 am
How exactly do you hit ALt+shift+0. Symbols can't be pulled up when viewing the pictures and there are no zero buttons.
March 6th, 2011 at 10:30 am
Ditto David. 🙁
March 18th, 2011 at 4:50 pm
O as in the letter "O"
I just tried it on my new kindle and it works
March 31st, 2011 at 2:22 pm
Do these photo replace the pictures that came with the Kindle?
March 31st, 2011 at 2:32 pm
Yes, they completely replace all of the pre-installed pictures.
March 31st, 2011 at 2:44 pm
Hmmm… it's not working for me yet. I have them in there, I can see them but when I put the Kindle to sleep the original pictures show up.
March 31st, 2011 at 2:49 pm
You have to do the ALT-shift-0 thingy to each of the pictures you want to become a screensaver. And, at least with my Kindle 1, it is picky about recognizing the sequence. When it does, a message displays on the screen that the picture is now a screensaver, but I remember I had to retry several times on some pictures to get it to take.
March 31st, 2011 at 3:04 pm
I'm not getting any message after my ALT-shift-O. I'll have my 13 year old daughter work on it when I get home. 😉
March 31st, 2011 at 3:13 pm
Ha, that should work! You might try ALT-shift-0 (zero) and ALT-shift-O (letter O). I kept playing around with the combinations when I did it and can't honestly remember which worked, but one of them definitely does.
March 31st, 2011 at 3:41 pm
I can't seem to get to the Symbols while viewing the photo.
March 31st, 2011 at 4:45 pm
Not sure what you mean. What 'symbol' do you need? Sorry if this is a dumb question, I am only familiar with the Kindle 1 and its keyboard layout.
March 31st, 2011 at 5:23 pm
I guess mine is a Kindle 3. There is nothing else but letters on the keyboard. You have to hit a "Sym" key to get a screen that shows numbers. Up thread someone mentions that a O works though.
April 4th, 2011 at 7:51 pm
I never got this to work. I could get the photos there but I never got any message after ALT-shift-O.
April 5th, 2011 at 4:21 am
Sorry to hear that. Hopefully someone with a Kindle 3 that has it working will be able to point us all in the right direction.
April 5th, 2011 at 5:16 am
Well, some googling turns up the answer. The Kindle 3 is locked down and does not permit changing the screensaver pictures. That explains why you can't get it to work. Apparently there is a hack that will allow you to perform the change, but it requires jailbreaking your device – a pretty radical move. More information at the link here http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/37424/jailbreak-yo…
April 5th, 2011 at 7:08 am
Yes, I discovered that. I used the hack that you refer to above and it works great. Note that you will need an update for it. Scroll down and read some of the last posts to find it.
Thanks,
October 24th, 2011 at 4:58 pm
When I do this on my first generation kindle, all the steps work until the last few. I'll press Alt-Shift-0, and I'll get something that looks like a number line.
January 1st, 2012 at 12:36 pm
Does it work on kindle 4? I keep tyring but it work.