Change the Cisco IP Phone Background

This article shows how to change the IP phone background for Cisco Communications Manager. The background image come from the List.xml file that is copied by the IP Phone from the TFTP server. This file contains a list of all available background images available on the TFTP server, in this case our CUCM.  

Here we go!!!

- Create or edit List.xml file

This is an example for a Cisco 7945 IP Phone:

<CiscoIPPhoneImageList>
<ImageItem Image="TFTP:Desktops/320x212x16/TN-FullCisco.png"
URL="TFTP:Desktops/320x212x16/FullCisco.png"/>
</CiscoIPPhoneImageList>

Be sure to not have spaces at the end of each line because our file wont work.

- Edit your image for IP phone background and thumbail

In this case my IP phone model is 7945 so the size for background is 320x212 pixels, and thumbail size is 80x53 pixels.

- Upload List.xml, background and thumbail files to CUCM

Using Cisco Unified Operating System Administrator webpage, log in an go to Software Upgrades>TFTP File Management.

Click Upload File and browse the files storage on your local machine, then specify the appropiate CUCM directory, this process is for our 3 files.

Using Cisco Unifed Serviceability webpage, log in an go to Tools>Control Center - Features Services, look for Cisco TFTP service and restart it.

If you don´t restart the service the IP phones never refresh their List.xml and images files.

Then restart the IP phone and then go to Setting > User preferences > Background image and select your custom background (from the physical IP phone).

Cisco IP Phone 7942/7962

Full size image:  320 pixels x 196 pixels

Thumbnail image:  80 pixels x 49 pixels

Directory:  /Desktops/320x196x4

Cisco IP Phone 7945/7965

Full size image:  320 pixels x 212 pixels

Thumbnail image:  80 pixels x 53 pixels

Directory:  /Desktops/320x212x16

Cisco IP Phone 7975

Full size image:  320 pixels x 216 pixels

Thumbnail image:  80 pixels x 53 pixels

Directory:  /Desktops/320x216x16

Cisco IP Phone 8961/9951/9971

Full size image:  640 pixels x 480 pixels

Thumbnail image:  123 pixels x 111 pixels

Directory:  /Desktops/640x480x24

Cisco IP Communicator

Full size image:  320 pixels x 212 pixels

Thumbnail image:  80 pixels x 53 pixels

Directory:  /Desktops/320x212x12

I hope this information is helpful.

Thanks for reading.