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About

Who makes MacScapes

MacScapes is a live wallpaper app for the Mac, made by Chris at Neon Frenchie. Its 42 scenes are drawn live in any of 48 palettes, with widgets, ambient sound and folder icons to match. Here's who makes it, and exactly what it can and can't reach on your Mac.

The maker

I'm Chris, and I run Neon Frenchie, a small independent studio. I like building cool stuff, and MacScapes is the thing I wanted on my own desk: a wallpaper that's alive without a video library filling the disk, with the clock, the folder icons and the sound all in the same light. It's a small project, so questions and ideas sent to support reach me directly.

Why another wallpaper app

Most live wallpaper apps for the Mac are video players with a download library. That works, but a looping clip is the same every time, each one takes hundreds of megabytes, and nothing else on the desktop matches it. MacScapes went the other way: every scene is a small program your Mac draws as it goes, so it never loops, recolors to any palette in a moment, and the whole app is about 35 MB. Widgets, folder icons and sound take their cue from the same palette, and a schedule changes the lot with your day.

A few principles shape the app. A wallpaper is on screen all day, so scenes move slowly and stay out of the way. Every scene is drawn on your Mac to a budget of about two milliseconds of GPU time per frame, and stops drawing when you can’t see it. The app uses standard Mac controls and asks for as little as it can.

Is MacScapes safe?

Yes. MacScapes runs in Apple’s App Sandbox, which limits an app to what it declares up front. MacScapes declares five entitlements, and this is the complete list:

  • App Sandbox. Everything else on this list is an exception to it.
  • Outgoing network connections, for two things: the weather widget asks Open-Meteo for a forecast for your approximate area, and place names come from Apple’s location service. Nothing about you or your desktop is sent.
  • Location, only if you allow it, to work out sunrise and sunset for schedules. Without it, MacScapes estimates them from your time zone.
  • Files you choose: the photos and movies you pick as backgrounds, and the folders you give new icons. MacScapes can’t see anything else on your disk.
  • Remembering those files, so a background or folder icon still works after a restart.

It doesn’t ask for Accessibility or Screen Recording access, and its keyboard shortcuts work without them. There’s no account, no ads and no analytics in the app. The privacy policy has the details.

MacScapes will be on the Mac App Store, where Apple reviews every update, and available as a direct download that's signed with a Developer ID and notarized by Apple. Both versions are the same app with the same sandbox.

For comparison, we opened the downloads of four other live wallpaper apps on October 9, 2026. Of the five, only MacScapes and Aerial run in the App Sandbox. One of the others includes a third-party analytics service. The details are in our comparison.

What it changes on your Mac

  • Your desktop picture, if Match desktop picture and lock screen is on (it is by default). MacScapes saves a still of the current scene as your macOS wallpaper so the Lock Screen and Mission Control match, and remembers the picture you had. Turn the setting off and your own picture comes back.
  • Folder icons, only on folders you choose. The icon is stored in the folder itself, the way Finder stores any custom icon, so it stays if you delete the app. The Folder Icons page lists every folder you’ve changed, with Reset and Reset All.

Removing MacScapes

To leave nothing behind, open Folder Icons and choose Reset All, turn off Match desktop picture and lock screen in Settings to get your own wallpaper back, then quit the app and move it to the Trash.

Contact

Questions, bugs or ideas: support@macscapes.app. Writing about MacScapes? See the press page.