How it changes
- Time of Day: the picture follows the clock.
- Sun Position: the picture follows the sun where you are, the way the built in macOS dynamic wallpapers do.
- Light & Dark: one picture for Light mode, one for Dark mode.
Choose 4, 8, 12 or 16 frames, set how dark the night gets and how warm sunrise and sunset glow, and download the wallpaper for a 5K iMac or Studio Display (5120 × 2880), a Pro Display XDR (6016 × 3384), a 24" iMac, a MacBook Pro, a MacBook Air, 4K, QHD, Full HD or an ultrawide. Every frame is HEVC encoded by the encoder built into macOS, in Safari or Chrome on a Mac; nothing is uploaded.
How it works
One wallpaper, lit for every hour, in the HEIC file macOS changes through the day
A macOS dynamic wallpaper is one .heic file that holds several pictures and a schedule. The generator draws your wallpaper once per frame from the same palette, style, fields and seed, and lights each frame for its hour: noon is your palette itself, sunrise and sunset take on a warm glow, and the night dims the colors into a moonlit blue. Night and Glow set how far it goes.
Every frame is HEVC encoded by the encoder built into macOS, through your browser, then all of them are written into one HEIC with the schedule macOS reads: Time of Day follows the clock, Sun Position follows the sun where you are, the way the built in macOS wallpapers do, and Light & Dark follows the system appearance. Nothing is uploaded; the file is made in your browser.
Questions
- How do I set a dynamic wallpaper on my Mac?
- Download the .heic file, open System Settings, Wallpaper, and click Add Photo, or drag the file onto the wallpaper list. On older macOS versions, open System Preferences, Desktop & Screen Saver, and press the plus button. You can also right click the file in Finder and choose Set Desktop Picture.
- Which macOS versions support it?
- Every Mac since macOS Mojave (10.14) can show a dynamic wallpaper. Time of Day and Sun Position change the picture through the day; Light & Dark follows the appearance you choose in System Settings, Appearance, or Auto.
- Which browsers can make the file?
- Safari and Chrome on a Mac. Every frame is HEVC encoded by the encoder built into macOS, through the browser; nothing is uploaded and the page ships no codec of its own. In a browser without an HEVC encoder the page still shows your day, and the link opens the same wallpaper on your Mac.
- Is the wallpaper free to use?
- Yes. Every dynamic wallpaper you generate is yours to use, for personal and commercial work, on as many Macs as you like. No sign in, no watermark, no attribution needed.
