You just acquired a new iPhone 17, or you’re intending to get one shortly. Alternatively, you might have updated your older iPhone to iOS 26. Regardless, you need to grab one of those fantastic new custom lock screens that suit the Liquid Glass aesthetic, without delay.

The great news is that iOS 26 offers several user-friendly options to generate a custom lock screen using any images, fonts, and widgets you prefer. Here’s how you can do it.

Option 1: Set a wallpaper in settings

There are several straightforward methods to establish a new wallpaper and personalize your lock screen on iOS 26. The simplest way is to navigate to your device’s settings:

1. Open Settings
2. Select Wallpaper
3. Tap “Add New Wallpaper”
4. Choose either a single photo or a Photo Shuffle option

After picking a photo, you’ll encounter a customizable version of the lock screen. Swipe to apply various filters to your photo, and pinch and drag to zoom and crop the photo to your liking. In the widgets section, you can tap and choose which widgets to include on your lock screen. Available options feature tools like the flashlight and calculator, as well as apps such as Gmail or Instagram.

Ultimately, you can pull down the clock so that it mostly disappears behind the central object in the photo (this occurs automatically). If you touch the clock, you can also modify the font, size, and color of the clock.

Pro tip: The fewer widgets you incorporate into your lock screen, the better it will appear! We suggest keeping it minimal with just the flashlight and camera as default options.

Option 2: Go to Photos

If you already have a specific photo in mind as your new wallpaper, you can also set a wallpaper in the Photos app. To do this, tap the share button, swipe down, and select “Use as Wallpaper.”

From this point, you can customize the lock screen just like before.

Option 3: Customize via the lock screen

Finally, you can simply press down on the lock screen and select “Customize” if you wish to modify everything on the lock screen all at once. From here, you can adjust the size of the clock display, alter its font, add or remove widgets, and even swipe left and right to toggle between various color filters for the wallpaper. It’s quite simple once you locate it.

What’s holding you back? Go ahead and create the coolest lock screen you can!