Lively Wallpaper Alternatives for Mac.
Having beautiful wallpapers on your desktop will easily improve your mood. After all, you see it every time you open your computer. The only thing better than beautiful scene wallpaper is a live wallpaper with the addition of motion. Enter Lively Wallpaper, a popular application that allows you to set GIFs, videos, and web pages as your desktop wallpaper and screensavers.
Unfortunately, Lively Wallpaper is only available for Windows and not for macOS X. In this article, we will show you the best live wallpaper apps that you can use to add an animated background to your Mac desktop.
Live Wallpaper on Mac: the Built-in Method
One argument some users make against animated desktop backgrounds is that they waste computer processing power by increasing your CPU, GPU, and battery usage. However, the developers of live wallpaper apps are aware of this problem and often come up with solutions, such as pausing the wallpaper when running full-screen apps on your computer.
If you decide to change your desktop still image to an animated wallpaper, you should first try using a method built into your Mac called Dynamic Desktop. You can install it on any Apple computer (MacBook Air, MacBook Pro, or iMac) as long as you’re running macOS Mojave 10.14 or later.
To set a dynamic wallpaper on a Mac, from the Apple menu open System Preferences, then choose Desktop & Screen Saver > Desktop. Dynamic wallpapers slowly switch from day to night version during the day.
On macOS Mojave, you only get 2 dynamic wallpaper options. With macOS Monterey, you get 8 different options, as well as several options for light and dark desktop wallpapers that change throughout the day.
If you want to use your own photos as your animated wallpaper, select the Photos or Pictures folder on the left (depending on where you store your images), select an image, then select Edit images” at the bottom of the window.
Select an image interval from the drop-down menu. You can choose any option: from changing photos every 5 seconds to getting a new picture once a day.
Best Lively Wallpaper Alternatives for Mac
There are many websites and apps that you can use to get live wallpapers for your Mac. Some of them are free and open source, while others require a subscription or a one-time payment. We have selected the best websites and web tools where you can get new wallpapers for your computer.
1. Satellite Eyes
Price: free.
Satellite Eyes is an application for macOS that allows you to change your desktop wallpaper to a satellite image of your current location. It will also be a dynamic image that changes every time you open your laptop in a new location.
Once you download the app, you can choose from several card styles and effects. You can choose to display your map in abstract watercolor or choose the accuracy of aerial photography. If you have multiple monitors installed, Satellite Eyes will take advantage of the full width and stretch the images across the monitors.
Satellite Eyes is a free application whose source code is available on GitHub.
2. Live Wallpapers HD & Weather
Price: Free, in-app purchases available.
Live Wallpapers HD & Weather is the perfect app for those who like a practical approach to things. This tool offers a collection of wallpapers that will bring your desktop to life. The wallpapers are themed and each one has a built-in clock and weather widget, so you won’t have to search Google for the current weather anymore. The clock and weather widgets have many customization options for every style and preference.
You can also use the app’s wallpaper engine to create live wallpapers from your own photos and images.
3. ScreenPlay
Price: free.
ScreenPlay is an open source live wallpaper platform that supports Windows and OSX. ScreenPlay is considered one of the best Lively Wallpaper alternatives as the app is free, open source and includes Steam integration. In ScreenPlay, you can use one of the designs created by other users, or make your own live wallpapers and share them with others.
ScreenPlay also lets you create your own widgets and app drawers. The only downside here is that you won’t be able to use it if you don’t have an active Steam account.
4. Aerial
Price: free.
Aerial is another free and open source application that can be used to decorate your desktop with animated wallpapers. The app was developed by John Coates as a Mac screensaver (compatible with macOS 10.12 or later) that plays aerial movies shot with Apply over New York, San Francisco, Hawaii, China, and more.
Since Aerial is an open source application, it is constantly evolving and new features are added. The latest version allows you to display weather information and forecasts for your current location. All users are invited to contribute to the development of the application on GitHub.
5. 24 Hour Wallpaper
Price: $7.
If you feel like your desktop needs a major aesthetic update, try 24 Hour Wallpaper. This app lets you choose from over 100 professional images and watch them change over time with natural light.
There are dozens of beautiful desktop wallpapers that are suitable for different times of the day. There are nature and city themed wallpapers including sites like Sierras, Yosemite, Pyramid Lake, New York, Los Angeles, Paris, Tokyo and more. All images are in full 5K resolution.
You can select photos from a specific location only, or choose from 24-hour wallpaper mixes. The mixes consist of images from random places and places that change throughout the day. A fun way to travel without leaving your workplace.
6. Live Desktop
Price: $0.99 (share).
Live Desktop is another great app to help bring your desktop background to life. In the application, you will find many live themes and wallpapers, such as a waving flag, a waterfall, a burning fireplace, a roaring lion and much more.
Most of these live themes have built-in audio. You can enable or disable it in the app. Together with live themes, live sound really brings your desktop background to life. This can serve as a welcome distraction or a way to get inspiration and new ideas for your next project.
The developers of the app state that even when you use both live themes and sound, Live Desktop is still low on resources and shouldn’t impact your battery, processor, or overall performance of your Mac.
7. Dynamic Wallpaper Club
Price: free.
The best way to personalize your desktop is to create your own live desktop background. If you have a collection of wallpaper images, you can use the Dynamic Wallpaper Club app to turn them into an animated screensaver for your Mac. To start the creative process, click the Create button at the top of the screen. Register an account and you can start creating wallpapers for free.
The dynamic creation tool is easy to use, even if you’ve never made a wallpaper before. Drag and drop images to the toolbar and then make sure they fit the theme you want based on the time of day they were taken. Before finalizing your wallpaper, you can use the Preview section to see the results. You can then upload new wallpapers and also share them with other users.
Bring Your Gadgets to Life with Live Wallpapers
If you find still images boring and you want to experience animated scenes from the moment you turn on your computer until you complete your tasks, live wallpapers can really bring you to life. You can also spread the love to all your gadgets and set live wallpapers as mobile backgrounds on Android or iPhone.
Lively Wallpaper Alternatives for Mac
Lively Wallpaper Alternatives for Mac