MacScapes

MacScapes is a live wallpaper app for Mac, made by Neon Frenchie. It draws 42 animated scenes live on your Mac's graphics chip, in any of 48 palettes, and pairs each one with desktop widgets, folder icons and ambient sound that match. Together they're saved as vibes, which can change on a schedule or at sunrise and sunset. It runs on macOS 14 or later, on Apple silicon and Intel. The free version has no time limit, and MacScapes Pro is $19.99 once, for up to 3 Macs.

Video wallpaper apps like Backdrop and Wallper play recorded clips, which loop and keep the colors they were filmed in. MacScapes draws each scene as it plays, so there's no clip that restarts every few seconds, any palette recolors it, and the app stays about 31 MB with every scene included. It also matches widgets, folder icons and sound to the wallpaper, which neither of those apps lists. If you want your own clips, Pro plays those too.

As little as we can manage. Each scene is designed to a budget of about two milliseconds of GPU time per frame on Apple silicon, and drawing stops whenever windows cover the desktop or the display sleeps. On battery, with Save energy on battery turned on, MacScapes drops to 30 frames per second at half resolution, and Pro can switch to a battery vibe you choose.

The free version is the trial, and it has no time limit, so you can try scenes, widgets and schedules before you pay. If you buy Pro and it isn't right for you, ask within 30 days for a full refund.

Nothing that identifies you. There's no account and no tracking across apps or sites, and every scene is drawn on your Mac. The app sends anonymous usage counts, like which scenes are showing and when the upgrade screen opens, with a random ID that isn't tied to you; turn them off in Settings › Privacy. Location is optional and only used to work out sunrise and sunset; Apple's location service turns it into a place name. If you add the weather widget, it asks MET Norway, the Norwegian weather service, for a forecast for your approximate area. This website counts visits without cookies and stores nothing in your browser.

Yes. Every display gets its own living wallpaper, and you can turn it off on any of them. Widgets can sit on whichever display you like, and with Pro each display can show a different background.

Yes. Any photo can be a background, held still or moving slowly, and that's part of the free version. With Pro, a video can loop silently behind your windows instead. Videos use more energy than scenes, so the app says so when you pick one.

Only the icon changes. MacScapes stores it in the folder, the way Finder does when you paste an icon, and keeps a list of every folder it changed. Reset one folder or all of them from that list to put the standard icon back. Icons you leave in place stay after MacScapes is gone.