James Vincent

Deploy custom Teams background images using Intune

Updated 17th May 2026 – v2.0 of the script has been uploaded. It’s almost fully rewritten and now includes “uninstall” support. The whole process still works, confirmed with Microsoft Teams version 26106.1906.4665.7308. MacOS users, switch over to this article for your How To.


For the third time in as many weeks I’ve come across folks needing or wanting to deploy custom/branded/corporate background images to Microsoft Teams… It used to be simple, but now in order to utilise native methods, your users need to have a Teams Premium license.

I first had a need for this personally a few weeks ago, and since then, two clients I’ve worked with have had the same request. Three requests in three weeks made me think it was probably worth scribbling something down to help others, so here we are.

Previously, with old old Teams, you could drop background images in a specific directory, and they’d appear for selection. Easy peasy, but with “new” (now old) Teams, backgrounds require a few things to be “compatible”. They need to conform to specific resolution (sizing) and they need to have a filename which contains a GUID. When you manually upload an image through the Teams console, this is handled for you. Likewise, when using the Teams Admin Console to deploy images, this too is handled for you. But we’re assuming we don’t have the licenses to deploy en-masse, and we definitely don’t want thousands of users to be manually uploading a heap of images.

So, how might we do it, without the prerequisite of a Teams Premium license? Well, there’s always a million and one ways to achieve “the outcome”, and this outcome is no different. Of course, PowerShell will help here.

I’ve cobbled together a series of functions, commands, and modules to generate a .intunewin file which you can upload into Intune for deployment to your environment. The script is provided with no warranties and no support.

The script will;

  • Check to see if the ResizeImageModule is present, if not, Install it
  • Prompt you to define a path in which you have your custom backgrounds located
    • Ensure this folder is empty, apart from the images you wish to push out.
    • Note: v2.0 has limited support for converting images to JPG, for best results start with JPGs.
    • Note: The script will create an “Intune” subfolder within this path, in which the materials for deployment will be created.
  • Prompt you to supply a description for the Image, this is the “Title” Teams will display when hovering over the image to select it for use.

The script will then perform a few checks, download the Win32App Creator utility and wrap everything up into a .intunewin file and provide you with instructions for you to upload to Intune for deployment.

How to

First of all, create yourself a working directory, on a PC that isn’t restricted in the scripts it can execute and files it can download. Whilst the script isn’t doing anything untoward, if you’re unable to launch it due to execution policy restrictions, can’t download the Win32 App Wrapper or don’t have permission to write to directories, you’re going to struggle.

In this example we create c:\Temp\Teams – ensure your .jpg files are added here.

Then head over to GitHub and download the script; Intune/MSTeamsBackgrounds/Win/Create-MSTeamsBackgrounds.ps1, save this script into c:\Temp or somewhere outside of the working directory that you have created.

Open PowerShell and execute the script. Accept any prompts relating to the ResizeImageModule needing to be installed, enter the path to your freshly created working directory (C:\Temp\Teams), and provide a description for the images (James Vincent Test). Then sit back and wait for ~60 seconds.

Version 2.0 of the original script, created/modified in May 2026 now accepts command line input for the location and description. Example usage is;

.\Create-MSTeamsBackgrounds.ps1 -ImageLocation ‘C:\Temp\Teams\’ -ImageName ‘Vini-May2026’

If you run it without the parameters, you will of course be prompted to enter them.

As per v1.0, the script will wrap the necessary contents into an .intunewin file for you, ready for direct upload into Intune. v2.0 will now provide you with the installation/uninstallation parameters, alongside a file you can use for detection.

Note the mention of Uninstallation 🙂

As long as we see a bunch of success messages in the resulting script, then if you check the working directory now, you should see that in the root of the directory, we have the Win32App Wrapper and a new “Intune” subfolder.

The “Intune” subfolder should contain all the collateral you need to proceed with mass deployment. In here we should find the correctly resized image files, with the supplied description appended. A newly created .ps1 file which we reference in our Intune installation command, a detection script, a detection file and the necessary .intunewin file, which is effectively a zip file containing the images, and the other files.

So all we need to do from here is log into Intune, and create a Win32 Application for deployment. What and how this is, is covered here — Publish and Deploy a Win32 Application to Microsoft Intune – James Vincent

This is a snapshot of what my Intune app looks like. Note, the Install behaviour is set to User.

Install parameters
Install Commandpowershell.exe -ExecutionPolicy Bypass -WindowStyle Hidden -NoProfile -File Deploy-MSTeamsBackgrounds.ps1
Uninstall Commandpowershell.exe -ExecutionPolicy Bypass -WindowStyle Hidden -NoProfile -File Deploy-MSTeamsBackgrounds.ps1 -RemoveImages

Note: In v1.0 there was no option to uninstall. Essentially all that is required is something to remove the generated files from the %LocalAppData%\Packages\MSTeams_8wekyb3d8bbwe\LocalCache\Microsoft\MSTeams\Backgrounds\Uploads folder if you really wanted. In v2.0 uninstallation support is included.

For the detection method, we’re checking for the included .detection file. The supplied detection script will do this for you. The .detection file also contains reference of the images deployed in this particular payload, and the contents of the .detection file will be used when uninstalling.

With the Intune application created, assign it as you see fit. The recommendation here would be to test it first, so in my test environment I published it as Available to a select group of users. That way, I could hop on a test device and self-serve it from within Company Portal.

Note. During install/uninstall, a PowerShell context window will briefly flash open for ~1 second.

This should be the result.

The simply open Teams and check your Custom Backgrounds…

All you need to do now, is issue your users with a set of instructions on how to apply the deployed backgrounds within the Teams client.

Happy days.

James avatar

James

I am a UK based Modern Workplace Architect, with an enthusiasm for Device Management.

37 responses to “Deploy custom Teams background images using Intune”

  1. Karl Parker

    I have tried this following your instructions, and it all seems to work OK, until I assign the app, it tries to install for the test group, but then I get installation failed, and no files are copied, and the app says no files detected after successful installation.

    Reply
    1. James

      Do the images “install” – as in, can you select them within Teams?

      What’s the error code you get for Install failed? Head’s saying a problem with your detection method.

      Reply
  2. Jason K

    I was able to successfully deploy custom Teams backgrounds using Intune after following these instructions. After trying multiple ways/scripts over the course of five days to deploy Teams backgrounds unsuccessfully I was elated after it installed successfully, and I verified that the multiple custom images were available as backgrounds in Teams.

    Thank you James, for saving my sanity. I wish you the best.

    Reply
  3. Jaydan Harvey

    For some odd reason it just displays as “Not applicable” in the reports, and doesnt actually install.
    Thoughts ?

    Reply
    1. James

      Which reports?
      Check the Intune logs

      Not applicable would likely mean the Teams App doesn’t exist, or you’ve set the requirements of the Win32 App you’ve uploaded to something making the assignment not applicable.

      Reply
  4. davidinark

    Perfect! Your steps here and in the other post worked exactly as needed.:-) Now, if we could only FORCE the background without Premium. 🙂

    Reply
    1. James

      Great, I wonder if there’s a reg key for that or something…

      Reply
  5. Lenka

    James, great script. Everything worked as described. Once per while our Communication department would like to change those pictures (company logo can be changed etc.). I am trying to come with the best practice how to remove the previous pictures. I was thinking about supersede or something which will always empty %LocalAppData%\Packages\MSTeams_8wekyb3d8bbwe\LocalCache\Microsoft\MSTeams\Backgrounds\Uploads folder
    when app in installed. Any idea?

    Reply
    1. James

      Hi Lenka, I guess the goal is to remove the old ones when deploying new ones. On that basis, I would just tweak the “Copy” script, to erase the previously copied files then copy over the new ones.

      Alternatively, you could keep the filenames the same with the new images, but perhaps change the detection method to be a date/filesize or something that is different from the new images to the old, this should fail detection method, force down the new package and work as expected.

      Reply
  6. Lenka

    Hello James, correct, I would like to remove completely all old deployed and deployed new one. So you are very much right about erasing everything in the folder %LocalAppData%\Packages\MSTeams_8wekyb3d8bbwe\LocalCache\Microsoft\MSTeams\Backgrounds\Uploads

    I made the test with your suggested alternative. But in that case I would need manually to rename those files after the script run, because even though pictures have same original name, after the script run, it will assign some “random” names. So this would be tricky to follow.

    Reply
    1. James

      Ah yes – I forgot it randomly generates a UUID.

      If you’re naming them, as per my example, as part of your script to clear out the old images you could look for files that contain “James Vincent Test” and remove them.

      Something like……

      # Set the path
      $uploadPath = “$env:LocalAppData\Packages\MSTeams_8wekyb3d8bbwe\LocalCache\Microsoft\MSTeams\Backgrounds\Uploads”

      # Find and remove .jpg files containing the target text
      Get-ChildItem -Path $uploadPath -Filter *.jpg -Recurse -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue |
      ForEach-Object {
      if (Select-String -Path $_.FullName -Pattern “James Vincent Test” -SimpleMatch -Quiet) {
      Remove-Item -Path $_.FullName -Force
      Write-Host “Deleted:” $_.FullName
      }
      }

      Reply
  7. Phantom

    Hi James,

    Thanks for this, it worked for me.

    Although it deployed successfully to the target folder, not sure why Intune says installation failed. Would you have any idea why?

    Reply
    1. James

      Your detection method will be incorrect. Typo or similar

      Reply
  8. Degies

    Could you use something like this to push wallpapers to a device as well and then in Intune simple set the path ?

    Reply
    1. James

      Absolutely! Stay tuned…

      Reply
  9. Damian

    Hi James, this works like a charm! thank you!

    on my test devices, it seems like a powershell window is briefly displaying. is that the expected behavior even though the -WindowsStyle Hidden?

    Reply
    1. James

      Ensuring the PowerShell window remains hidden, natively, without the use of any third party tooling such as PSADT can be very hit and miss.

      I didn’t witness or notice it during my testing, but I definitely believe you if you’re seeing it.

      Try putting the -WindowStyle param as the last param before the -File is called…

      powershell.exe -ExecutionPolicy Bypass -NoProfile -WindowStyle Hidden -File Copy-TeamsBackgrounds.ps1

      Alternatively, now we have Native deployment of PS Scripts via Win32, see if that helps at all…

      Failing that, it might need something like PSADT to help out, if its that troublesome.

      Reply
  10. Racheal

    I have tried to do this but failing at the install. I’ve set it as a available app so I can test directly from the company portal but it seems to just sit on Download pending for hours.
    I am not sure how to manage these backgrounds now that intune is involved.

    Reply
    1. James

      Hi Racheal, when it fails, what happens? Does Intune give you an error message?

      You could take Intune out of the equation for now. What happens if you simply run the PowerShell script manually? Does that work?

      Reply
  11. Chris

    Thanks <3

    Reply
  12. Richard

    This works great on our Local Teams installations but doesn’t work with Windows 365 Cloud PCs , do you know if there is a different location for Cloud PCs?

    Reply
    1. James

      Hi Richard,

      I’ve no access to a W365 Cloud instance, but browse to %LocalAppData%\Packages\MSTeams_8wekyb3d8bbwe\LocalCache\Microsoft\MSTeams\Backgrounds\Uploads and if that doesn’t exist, search for MSTeams_8wekyb3d8bbwe to see if you can locate it.

      Due to W365 using AVD components, it’s likely due to the User Profile configuration. So the directory “must be around somewhere”, just a case of finding it I guess.

      Reply
  13. Ken

    Hi.

    I took over a tenant where this method was used to deploy background images to everyone’s laptops by someone who is no longer available. This works great, but…

    Now we have to replace few of the existing images (not all) and add new ones.

    What would be the best way to do this?

    Reply
    1. James

      Hi Ken,

      There’s a comment within this post that proposes one way of achieving this.

      IF you have a way to programatically identify the images you need to remove, ie, they all have a similar/the same filename, then you could tweak the script to remove those before copying the new ones over.

      Alternatively, if you cannot see a way to achieve that, then I’d grab (all) the images you want to keep from the existing directory (%LocalAppData%\Packages\MSTeams_8wekyb3d8bbwe\LocalCache\Microsoft\MSTeams\Backgrounds\Uploads) and create a new package containing ALL the images (new and old) and simply add a line in the script to remove all contents before copying the images over. For example (not-tested)…

      Remove-Item “$env:LOCALAPPDATA\Packages\MSTeams_8wekyb3d8bbwe\LocalCache\Microsoft\MSTeams\Backgrounds\Uploads\*” -Recurse -Force -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue

      You may also need to force close Teams too…? That’s where testing comes in.

      Reply
  14. Sooraj Sharma

    Just a Curiosity, after resizing .jpg or .png pic, it also creates thumb of pics, is it really required to deploy them as well along with main pics?

    Reply
    1. James

      Without the Thumbnails generated, Teams will not show what the background looks like from the selector shown in the last image on my post. It would just be blank, and not very user friendly.

      Reply
      1. Sooraj

        Thank you James.

        Reply
  15. Vitor Pereira

    Does this still work with current versions of Teams? I deployed it successfully and ended up with the files in the correct folder but Teams does not show them.

    Reply
    1. James

      The process is over a year old, and did circumvent Enterprise licensed features/functionality. So it is possible that it no longer functions.

      Reply
    2. James

      Just tested on Microsoft Teams version 26093.415.4620.1935. All good & working.

      Reply
  16. SJ

    Once script has been run and after that we want to add more background image on teams app, we have to just add the image in folder where we stored the background or we need to re-run the script after the image.

    Reply
    1. SJ

      We want to add more than one background image then what we have to do here?

      Reply
      1. James

        Ensure all the images are in the folder you specify when running the script to generate the Intune package.

        Reply
        1. SJ

          This will only applicable for Windows Devices, what if i want to deploy for mac/ios devices as well, need what action needs to be taken here, please suggest?

          Additionally if want to remove old image and wanted to replace with new background image, then what steps needs to be taken, already over 15-20 devices old teams background are there.

          Reply
          1. James

            The script is just copying files to a location. So assuming Teams on the mac works in a similar way, and supports the same images, then a script for macOS to copy to the relevant folder would likely suffice.

            In relation to “old images”. As per discussions above, if you’ve prefixed your images with say “Campaign1-” then you could create a script to enumerate all files starting “Campaign1-*” and remove those, and/or a script that simply remove all files in the folder.

    2. James

      The script isn’t doing anything other than;

      – Reading a folder (c:\Temp\Teams in my guide) for images you wish to use as backgrounds in Teams.
      – Tweaking the images slightly to make them usable by Teams.
      – Copying the images to the location Teams wants them.

      Once the images are “copied” to the local destination which is what the Intune assignment does, those files exist locally on that device.

      If you want to add /new/ and /different/ images in 1/3/6/x months time. I would start with a clean folder and run the process again.

      As others have discussed above, it gets tricky when you need/want to remove OLDER images, but it’s totally possible. This script doesn’t cater for that however.

      Reply
  17. Steven

    worked like a charm

    Reply

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