About

Drift Wallpapers is a site where you explore phone wallpapers on a map instead of scrolling a list. Wallpapers are placed into regions by mood and color, so you can drift across the map and let one catch your eye.

How to use

• Explore: drag the map (swipe on mobile). Wallpapers that sit close together share a similar mood.
• Open: tap on mobile, double-click on desktop, to preview a wallpaper.
• Flow: the "Flow" button shows wallpapers one by one, like short videos. Swipe up and down to move, double-tap to add a favorite.
• Collect: favorites are always available from the ★ button. They are stored only on your device.
• Check: each wallpaper page can preview how the image looks on a lock screen and home screen.

Where the wallpapers come from

There are two kinds of wallpapers on the site.

• Library wallpapers: selected for how well they work on a phone screen from an image library that we photograph, produce and curate. Feel free to use them as personal phone wallpapers. Please do not redistribute them, include them in asset packs, or embed them in products for sale.
• Works from public archives: woodblock prints released by museums (CC0) and photographs from NASA (public domain) and ESA/Hubble (CC BY 4.0), cropped to 9:16. Each page names the artist or source, links to the original and states the license; you can use these works under their own licenses (see License).

How we measure

We measure the brightness of every wallpaper: the band where the lock-screen clock sits (10–28% from the top), the bottom quarter where home-screen icon labels sit, how much the brightness varies across the image, and the share of near-black pixels. The lock-screen and home-screen ratings on each wallpaper page and the rules behind every collection are derived mechanically from these measurements, on a 0–255 scale: below 80 counts as dark enough for white text, 150 and above as bright.

About the descriptions

The description of each wallpaper is written with the help of AI (Anthropic's Claude), based on the image and its measurements, in Japanese, English and Spanish. The English and Spanish texts are written in each language, not machine-translated. Statements that contradict the measurements are checked and corrected automatically, but if you spot a mistake, please let us know.

Updates

• July 2026: the site launched.
• August 2026: articles based on our own measurements (Japanese only).
• September 2026: works from public archives (ukiyo-e prints and space photography), collections based on measurements, and seasonal collections.

Operator

mmStudio, Japan. We will tell you the name of the person responsible and our address without delay if you ask (Contact).