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Live wallpaper apps for Mac, compared

Our pick for most Macs is MacScapes: 42 scenes drawn live in 48 palettes, with widgets, folder icons and sound to match, and a free version with no time limit. Below are the ranking, the free options and each app side by side, with the date we checked every fact.

Picks by need

Best overall
MacScapes
Scenes drawn live, with widgets, sound and folder icons. Free to start.
Best video library
Backdrop
Thousands of community videos and a moving Lock Screen.
4K video, paid once
Wallper
About 2,900 4K videos for $14.99, covering 3 Macs.
Best free video
Aerial
Apple's aerials or your own clips, open source.
Older Macs
Mac+
Scenes drawn live on macOS 13.
Wallpaper Engine library
Vivid Walls
Imports the library you own from a Windows PC.

The main apps at a glance

MacScapes, Backdrop, Wallper, Mac+ and Aerial at a glance
MacScapesBackdropWallperMac+Aerial
PriceFree. Pro is $1.99 a month, $12.99 a year or $19.99 once$1.99 a month, $14.99 a year or $29.99 once$14.99 once for 3 Macs (Pro), $24.99 for 5 Macs (Pro+)€1.99 a month, or €9.99 once as a launch offer (normally €12.99). Prices are listed in euros onlyFree
Without payingFree version with no time limit: 7 scenes, 11 palettes, 3 widgets, 2 schedule rules. The yearly plan starts with a 1-week trialTrial with no time limit, up to 3 backdrops with a watermark7-day trial, then the app locks until you buyFree tier with no time limit: 6 scenes, 8 palettes, 2 widgets, 6 folder icons. 7-day trial of the monthly planFree and open source (MIT license)
RequiresmacOS 14 or later, Apple silicon and IntelmacOS 15 or latermacOS 14.6 or later. Lock Screen needs macOS 26macOS 13 or later, Apple silicon and IntelmacOS 26 or later for 4.1. Version 4.0.16 for macOS 15
Scenes drawn liveYes: 42 scenes and 48 palettes, plus 9 Living Stills (pictures with depth)No. Cindori describes it as video-onlyNo. The library is videoYes: 15 scenes and 44 palettes, plus a palette creatorNo. It plays video
Your own videoYes, with Pro. Movies loop silently. Your own photos are freeYes, through its CreatorYes, MP4 filesYes, with the paid planYes, .mov and .mp4 files in a folder
Desktop widgets14 widgets that take their colors from the wallpaper. Clock, date and day are freeNot listedNot listed12 widgets in the wallpaper's palette. 2 are freeOverlays for clock, date, weather, music, battery and more
Changes on a scheduleBy the clock, at sunrise or at sunset. 2 rules free, more with ProPlaylists with schedulesDay and night, light and dark, or set times. Can follow sunrise and sunset (1.12.0)Not listedPicks videos by time of day, sunrise and sunset, using your location
Lock ScreenA still of the current scene, set as your desktop picture. Not animatedMoving video on the Lock Screen (since 2.0)Moving Lock Screen and screen saver on macOS 26 and laterNo. Its fact sheet says there's no Lock Screen supportYes. 4.1 appears in Wallpaper settings as a wallpaper extension (beta)
“Not listed” means the developer’s own pages don’t mention it. Prices and features checked

How we compare

  • We make MacScapes, and we say so on every page.
  • Every fact about another app comes from its own website, App Store listing, release notes or download, and shows the date we read it. We check again at least every 60 days.
  • For the main apps, we downloaded the current version and looked inside: size, the macOS it needs, whether it runs in the App Sandbox, and the third-party services it includes.
  • “Not listed” means the developer doesn’t mention a feature, not that it’s missing. Where another app does something better, the page says so.

More about who we are on the about page.

Rankings

MacScapes compared

Head to head

Coming from Windows