Press release · Phosphene
kageroumado Releases Phosphene, Bringing Custom Video Wallpapers to the macOS Desktop and Lock Screen
Phosphene lets any video play as a macOS desktop and lock screen wallpaper, selected directly from System Settings alongside Apple's own Aerials. Free and open source under the MIT License.
Published · Updated . Features and availability describe the product at the update date.
On May 21, 2026, kageroumado released Phosphene 1.0, a free and open-source application that turns any video into a live wallpaper for both the desktop and the lock screen on macOS 26 Tahoe.
macOS includes animated wallpapers such as Apple's Aerials, but offers no way to add personal videos. Phosphene integrates with the same system wallpaper mechanism Apple's own wallpapers use, which kageroumado reverse engineered from the private WallpaperExtensionKit framework. As a result, user videos appear in System Settings under Wallpaper, in the same picker as Apple's collection, and reach the lock screen, which window-based wallpaper apps cannot do.
Phosphene plays any video format the Mac can decode, including MP4, MOV, HEVC, H.264 and ProRes, with frame-accurate gapless looping. Selections can differ per display and per Space. Playback is power-aware: it pauses or reduces work on battery, when the screen dims, when windows cover the desktop, under thermal pressure and during Game Mode, and it stops entirely after 30 seconds of inactivity.
Phosphene 1.11, released October 17, 2026, added Wallpaper Engine wallpapers. Wallpaper Engine is a Windows program with no Mac version; Phosphene finds the Steam Workshop wallpapers that a Windows Steam on the Mac has downloaded and renders each one into a looping video, which then plays like any other Phosphene wallpaper, including on the lock screen and as the screen saver.
Key features
- Any video as desktop and lock screen wallpaper
- Chosen from System Settings, alongside Apple's Aerials
- Per-display and per-Space selection
- Frame-accurate gapless looping
- Power-aware playback on battery, occlusion and thermals
- Usable as the screen saver
- Wallpaper Engine wallpapers from the Steam Workshop, made into looping videos
How it compares
| App | Price | License | Lock screen | Requires |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Phosphene | Free | MIT | Yes | macOS 26 or later; Apple silicon or Intel |
| Backdrop | Free with 3 watermarked wallpapers; US$1.99/month, $14.99/year or $29.99 lifetime | Proprietary | Yes | macOS 15 or later |
| Wallper | From US$14.99, after a 7-day trial | Custom | Yes | macOS 14.6 or later |
| WallpaperMachine | Free | GPL-3.0 | Experimental, off by default | macOS 15 or later; Apple silicon |
| Plash | Free | Source public, no license | No | Shows a website, not a video file |
| Wallpaper Engine | Paid, on Steam | Proprietary | Not on Mac | Windows; no immediate plans for Mac |
Guides
- Wallpaper Engine on Mac: Is there a Wallpaper Engine for Mac?
- Live wallpaper on Mac, free: How do I set a video as my Mac wallpaper?
Availability
Phosphene is available now as a free download from kagerou.glass/phosphene and GitHub. It requires macOS 26 Tahoe or later, is validated on macOS 27, and runs on Apple silicon and Intel Macs. The source code is published under the MIT License.
About kageroumado
I'm Mado Kagerou, publishing as kageroumado: an independent researcher and expert Swift engineer with more than ten years of software development experience. As a founder and technical lead, I take projects from architecture through release. My research interests center on computational pharmacology, computational neuroscience and AI safety. My engineering specialties include Apple platform internals, reverse engineering, GPU rendering and local model training.
Research, engineering work and leadership experience
Media contact
kageroumado · [email protected] · kagerou.glass