Best live wallpaper apps for Mac in 2026

Quick picks

How we ranked them

We make MacScapes, so we’ve set out the criteria plainly and kept every fact about other apps to their own pages and downloads. The ten apps are the ones that come up most when you search for a live wallpaper on a Mac, that were updated in the last year, and that publish a price. We weighed six things:

1. What ends up on your desktop. How much there is to choose from, whether it loops, and whether you can change its colors or speed.
2. How much of the desktop it covers. Only the wallpaper, or widgets, folder icons and sound that go with it.
3. Whether it changes on its own, by the clock, the sun or your power source.
4. What you get without paying, and for how long: a free version, a trial, a watermark or a lock.
5. Price over a year and for life.
6. Trust: whether the app runs in Apple’s App Sandbox, what third-party code it carries, and whether it’s still updated.

For the last point we downloaded five of the apps on October 9, 2026 and looked inside each one without running it. The results are further down.

The ranking at a glance

The ten apps, ranked

1. MacScapes: best overall

MacScapes treats the desktop as one thing. You pick a scene, from fog and aurora to rain, koi and a city at night, and a palette to color it, and the widgets, folder icons and ambient sound follow. Save that as a vibe, and a schedule can switch vibes at set times, at sunrise or at sunset, or when you unplug.

The 42 scenes are small programs your Mac draws frame by frame with Metal, so they never repeat the way a clip does, and any of the 48 palettes recolors them on the spot. There are also 9 Living Stills, pictures with gentle depth. Each scene is built to a budget of about 2 milliseconds of GPU time per frame and stops drawing when windows cover the desktop. Your own photos work as backgrounds for free, and your own videos with Pro. Browse every scene before you download.

Price: free, or Pro for $1.99 a month, $12.99 a year or $19.99 once. Needs: macOS 14 or later, Apple silicon or Intel. Keep in mind: there’s no library of filmed video, and the Lock Screen shows a still of the scene rather than motion.

2. Backdrop: best video library

Backdrop is the biggest name in video wallpaper on the Mac. It has a community library of thousands of video wallpapers, a Creator for your own clips, playlists with schedules, and video on the Lock Screen since version 2.0. It’s $1.99 a month, $14.99 a year or $29.99 once. The trial has no time limit, but watermarks up to three backdrops. It needs macOS 15, isn’t on the Mac App Store, and plays video only. More in MacScapes vs Backdrop.

3. Wallper: best one-time price for video

Wallper has about 2,900 4K video wallpapers for $14.99 once, on up to three Macs. In 2026 it added playlists that follow day and night or sunrise and sunset, and on macOS 26 its wallpapers keep moving on the Lock Screen. There’s no free version: after a 7-day trial the app locks until you buy. More in MacScapes vs Wallper and Backdrop vs Wallper.

4. Aerial: best free video wallpaper

Aerial began as a screen saver and now does wallpaper too. It’s free and open source, plays Apple’s aerial videos, community packs or your own clips, picks them by time of day using sunrise and sunset, and adds overlays like a clock or the weather. Version 4.1 needs macOS 26 and appears in Wallpaper settings as a wallpaper extension, still labeled beta. For older Macs, version 4.0.16 supports macOS 15.

5. Mac+: best for older Macs

Mac+ works the way MacScapes does, with scenes drawn by Metal in recolorable palettes, but with fewer of them: 15 scenes and 44 palettes, plus 12 widgets and 52 folder icon patterns. It runs on macOS 13, and lifetime is €9.99 as a launch offer. Its pages don’t mention schedules or sound, and it says it has no Lock Screen support. More in MacScapes vs Mac+.

6. Vivid Walls: best for a Wallpaper Engine library

Vivid Walls draws scenes too, but they’re Wallpaper Engine scenes copied over from a library you own on a Windows PC, and results vary by scene. It also plays video and web wallpapers. $9.99 on the Mac App Store after a 3-day trial, Apple silicon only. See Wallpaper Engine for Mac.

7. Plash: best for a web page as wallpaper

Plash shows a website as your wallpaper: a dashboard, a calendar or a WebGL animation. It’s free on the Mac App Store and can switch itself off on battery. It shows one website on one display, and the current version needs macOS 26.4.

8. MacWall

MacWall has more than 1,000 video wallpapers, some with sound, and music sync, for $12.99 once after a 24-hour trial. It shuffles on an interval rather than by time of day, and its pricing page isn’t consistent about how many Macs Pro+ covers.

9. Wallspace

Wallspace has a library of 1,000+ video wallpapers, playlists, a free tier and a $12.99 Pro upgrade, and supports the Lock Screen on macOS 26. It hasn’t published release notes since March 2026, and its pricing page and FAQ disagree on whether the Lock Screen is free or Pro.

10. 24 Hour Wallpaper

24 Hour Wallpaper isn’t a live wallpaper, though it shows up in most lists. It uses high-resolution photo sequences that change through the day to match the time and sun where you are. Eight wallpapers are free; all of them cost $29.99.

What we found inside the downloads

Every app here is signed and notarized by Apple, so macOS will open it. What they can reach once open differs. An app in the App Sandbox can only touch what it declares up front, which is why every Mac App Store app has to use it. Apps sold outside the store can skip it, and most of these do. We opened the current download of five apps on October 9, 2026 and read their size, requirements, sandbox entitlement and the third-party services built into them.

Finding a service’s address in an app shows it can contact that service, not what it sends. Backdrop’s privacy terms are on Cindori’s site. MacScapes has no account and no analytics, and its only outside request is the weather forecast for the weather widget. The About page lists everything it can reach.

Features side by side

Other apps we looked at

These came up in App Store searches, AlternativeTo and other roundups. Most are new in 2026 and haven’t built much of a following yet, so we haven’t ranked them. Some draw their wallpapers live, like MacScapes. Atheria has the most of those, with 85, but none of them pairs the wallpaper with matching widgets, folder icons and sound.

Not on the Mac

The two best-known live wallpaper apps on Windows don’t run on macOS. Wallpaper Engine is Windows only, and so is the free Lively Wallpaper. Any download claiming to be a Mac version of either isn’t from their developers. If you’re weighing free options, see free live wallpaper apps for Mac.

What changed in 2026

• Most video wallpaper apps now keep moving on the Lock Screen, and several need macOS 26 for it.
• Aerial merged its screen saver and wallpaper apps into one (version 4.0, May 2026).
• Backdrop removed its interactive Rive scenes in version 2.2.0 (November 2025) and is now video only.
• Wallper added sunrise and sunset playlists, and Backdrop added a pause on battery, both in autumn 2026.
• Plash now needs macOS 26.4, with older versions still on its website.
• MacScapes arrived, with 42 scenes drawn live and the widgets, sound and icons to match.