macOS menu bar app that loops a local video (.mp4, .mov, .m4v) as your desktop wallpaper.
- Runs as a menu bar item — no dock icon
- Borderless fullscreen window at the native desktop window level: sits behind desktop icons, clicks pass through
- Hardware-accelerated playback via AVFoundation (
AVQueuePlayer+AVPlayerLooperfor gapless looping) — low CPU and battery usage - Menu: Select Video…, Pause/Play, Quit
1 Wallpapers Source
I created this application for personal use, and I am not a macOS developer. It is provided as-is, without warranty of any kind. Use at your own risk and if you want to contribute, feel free to submit a pull request.
- macOS (Apple Silicon or Intel)
Grab FluentMacWallpaper-arm64.dmg (Apple Silicon) or FluentMacWallpaper-intel.dmg (Intel) from the
latest release, open it, and drag
FluentMacWallpaper.app into Applications.
No Apple Developer account. The app is only ad-hoc signed (no paid Apple Developer certificate, no notarization), so Gatekeeper blocks the first launch. To open it:
- Right-click (or Control-click)
FluentMacWallpaper.app→ Open → confirm Open in the dialog, or- Run
xattr -d com.apple.quarantine /Applications/FluentMacWallpaper.appin Terminal.You only need to do this once.
Requires Go 1.22+ and Xcode Command Line Tools (xcode-select --install).
git clone https://github.com/StevenCyb/FluentMacWallpaper.git
cd FluentMacWallpaper
go install .This puts the FluentMacWallpaper binary into $(go env GOPATH)/bin (make sure it is on your PATH).
Note:
go install github.com/StevenCyb/FluentMacWallpaper@latestdoes not work, becausego.modcontains areplacedirective pointing progrium/darwinkit to a purego-based fork. Upstream darwinkit crashes withSIGABRTin its libffi bridge on Go ≥ 1.25 (darwinkit#286); the replace can be dropped once darwinkit#276 is merged and released.
FluentMacWallpaper # start, then pick a video via the tray icon
FluentMacWallpaper ~/Movies/bg.mp4 # start and play this video immediatelyA tray icon appears in the menu bar:
| Menu item | Action |
|---|---|
| Select Video… | Open a file picker and start looping the chosen video |
| Pause / Play | Toggle playback |
| Launch at Login | Toggle starting the app automatically on login (via a LaunchAgent) |
| Quit | Exit and restore your normal wallpaper |
Video is muted and scaled to fill the screen (aspect-fill).
Video sources used in the demo:
- Midnight Fuel Stop. MotionBGS. https://motionbgs.com/midnight-fuel-stop
- Frostfang Barioth Armor (MHW Iceborne). MotionBGS. https://motionbgs.com/frostfang-barioth-armor-mhw-iceborne
- Morning Serenity. MotionBGS. https://motionbgs.com/morning-serenity