Backdrop 0.7.2

What's new: Present works with apps that go full screen

Fixed: a full-screen app could not be shared, or was lost when its capture restarted. An app that goes full screen moves to a desktop of its own, so from the desktop Backdrop is on it counts as out of view. Backdrop only looked at windows on the desktop in front, so a full-screen app was missing from the picker, and a capture that restarted or dropped could not find its window again and sat on the "closed" card. (A capture that was already running was fine: the window keeps its identity when it goes full screen and is captured from the other desktop just the same.)

Now:

• The picker lists full-screen apps, marked "On another desktop", with a live picture like every other window.
• The capture keeps going while you switch between desktops, and finds the window again when it restarts, at launch, after a dropped capture, or when you pick the same background again.
• If the window it was following is gone (an app that opens a separate window for its full-screen mode, like a slideshow), it looks for the replacement by title, or as that app's full-screen window.

Other windows on other desktops that are not full screen are not offered: from another desktop they cannot be told from hidden or minimised ones. Switch to their desktop and they appear.

Install

1. Unzip it and drag Backdrop.app into Applications. It has to live there for macOS to accept its camera extension.
2. Open it. Click the menu bar icon, then Set Up Backdrop Camera, and approve it in System Settings › General › Login Items & Extensions › Camera Extensions.
3. Turn the camera on, then choose Backdrop Camera in your video app.

Upgrading: replace the app in Applications and open it. It updates its own camera extension when it starts. If another app (Discord, a browser, FaceTime) is using the camera at that moment, macOS can leave Backdrop Camera missing from the list afterwards. Quit those apps and restart Backdrop; if it is still missing, restart your Mac.

Requires macOS 15.1 or later on Apple silicon. AI backgrounds need Apple Intelligence. Sharing a window or screen asks for Screen Recording permission the first time; a second camera does not need it.

Verify

Signed with a Developer ID certificate and notarized by Apple. To check the download:

shasum -a 256 -c Backdrop-0.7.2.zip.sha256

Early release

Developed and tested on a single Apple silicon Mac running macOS 27. The engine has automated tests, but the virtual camera, hand tracking and the lenses have had limited real-world testing, so expect rough edges. In particular:

• Full screen was tried with a test window, not with real apps. A throwaway window was sent full screen and then out of view: the old capture lost it and the new one kept it, and the picker's pieces found it and took its picture. Slideshows, browsers and video players have not been tried. An app that opens a separate window for its full-screen mode is found again by title or as the app's full-screen window, which is a guess. The part of a full-screen window above the top of the screen (where its title bar slides in) is part of the window, so it may show as a thin strip at the top of the shared picture.
• The lens fix from 0.7.1 was tested on drawn faces, not real ones. The checks run a made-up face through the real pipeline and confirm that where a lens is told your eyes are is where they are painted, in six Present layouts. It has not been tried on a real face or in a live call, so how a crown or hair sits on a real head is still the thing to look at.
• The second camera was built and tested without a second camera. The capture is the same code as the main camera's and the rest is covered by tests and pictures, but plugging one in, pulling it out in the middle of a call, an iPhone as a Continuity Camera and two cameras on one USB hub have not been tried with real hardware. Only one second camera can be shown at a time, and it cannot be shown together with a shared screen. It is shown as it arrives (a phone held upright gives a tall picture; there is no rotate or mirror option) and is limited to 720p.
• Present's hand control and Dragon Ball's poses were tuned without real hands, on made-up hands and Vision's reading of emoji hands, so how easily a pinch grabs and how a real cupped hand reads are the first things to tune.
• Dragon Ball is heavier than most lenses: its top form in the middle of a move took about 20 ms a frame on a busy Mac in the tests, so check it in a real call before relying on it at 30 frames a second.
• Hand and face thresholds in the older lenses are still tuned on drawn faces and hands, and speed was measured on one busy Mac.

Backdrop 0.7.1

What's new: lenses stay on you in Present

Fixed: lenses were drawn in the wrong place while you were presenting. When Present moved, shrank or tucked you into a bubble, a lens on top (a crown, Dragon Ball's hair and aura, anything that follows your face) was still placed where the camera had you, so it landed beside your head instead of on it. Dragon Ball also read your fists where you now are but your face where you were.

Lenses are now told where your face, hands and outline are in the picture everyone sees, so they stay on you in every Present arrangement: the Floating Panel with you off to one side, Presenter with your cutout moved or resized, and the camera bubble. This applies to every lens that reads your face, hands or outline, not only Dragon Ball.

In a bubble, a lens now works inside the bubble. What it draws follows you there, it stops at the bubble's edge, and the bubble's own room and ring are kept when a lens puts you back over the picture (before, a lens in a bubble drew as if you were still full size).

Install

1. Unzip it and drag Backdrop.app into Applications. It has to live there for macOS to accept its camera extension.
2. Open it. Click the menu bar icon, then Set Up Backdrop Camera, and approve it in System Settings › General › Login Items & Extensions › Camera Extensions.
3. Turn the camera on, then choose Backdrop Camera in your video app.

Upgrading: replace the app in Applications and open it. It updates its own camera extension when it starts. If another app (Discord, a browser, FaceTime) is using the camera at that moment, macOS can leave Backdrop Camera missing from the list afterwards. Quit those apps and restart Backdrop; if it is still missing, restart your Mac.

Requires macOS 15.1 or later on Apple silicon. AI backgrounds need Apple Intelligence. Sharing a window or screen asks for Screen Recording permission the first time; a second camera does not need it.

Verify

Signed with a Developer ID certificate and notarized by Apple. To check the download:

shasum -a 256 -c Backdrop-0.7.1.zip.sha256

Early release

Developed and tested on a single Apple silicon Mac running macOS 27. The engine has automated tests, but the virtual camera, hand tracking and the lenses have had limited real-world testing, so expect rough edges. In particular:

• The lens fix was tested on drawn faces, not real ones. The checks run a made-up face through the real pipeline and confirm that where a lens is told your eyes are is where they are painted, in six Present layouts, and the crown and Dragon Ball were rendered and looked at. It has not been tried on a real face or in a live call, so how a crown or hair sits on a real head is still the thing to look at.
• The second camera was built and tested without a second camera. The capture is the same code as the main camera's and the rest is covered by tests and pictures, but plugging one in, pulling it out in the middle of a call, an iPhone as a Continuity Camera and two cameras on one USB hub have not been tried with real hardware. Only one second camera can be shown at a time, and it cannot be shown together with a shared screen. It is shown as it arrives (a phone held upright gives a tall picture; there is no rotate or mirror option) and is limited to 720p.
• Present's hand control and Dragon Ball's poses were tuned without real hands, on made-up hands and Vision's reading of emoji hands, so how easily a pinch grabs and how a real cupped hand reads are the first things to tune.
• Dragon Ball is heavier than most lenses: its top form in the middle of a move took about 20 ms a frame on a busy Mac in the tests, so check it in a real call before relying on it at 30 frames a second.
• Hand and face thresholds in the older lenses are still tuned on drawn faces and hands, and speed was measured on one busy Mac.

Backdrop 0.7.0

What's new: a second camera

Show a second camera. In Present (or Add › Window, Screen or Camera… in the menu bar), the picker now has a Cameras section next to your screens and windows. A second camera can be a USB or HDMI-capture camera over your desk or a whiteboard, an iPhone used as a Continuity Camera or its Desk View, the built-in camera when your main one is external, or anything else macOS lists as a camera. Your main camera and Backdrop Camera are left out of the list.

It is shown exactly like a shared window, so it can sit behind you, float as a panel in a corner, or fill the picture with you over it, and you can move, resize and snap it with your hands the same way as a shared screen. Layout presets (Left, Right, Centre, Corner Bubble, Side by Side) work on it too.

It is only on while it is showing. Backdrop's own camera has to be on first, pausing (⌃⌥P) or stopping closes it so its light goes off, and the picker shows no live pictures since looking would turn every camera on. If you unplug it, everyone on the call sees a calm "disconnected" card until it is plugged back in, and it returns by itself. If you pick the second camera as your main camera, it steps aside and your previous background comes back.

Also fixed. The slash on the "window closed" card had a thick black halo. It is now a clean gap in the outline, and the new "camera disconnected" card has the same.

Install

1. Unzip it and drag Backdrop.app into Applications. It has to live there for macOS to accept its camera extension.
2. Open it. Click the menu bar icon, then Set Up Backdrop Camera, and approve it in System Settings › General › Login Items & Extensions › Camera Extensions.
3. Turn the camera on, then choose Backdrop Camera in your video app.

Upgrading: replace the app in Applications and open it. It updates its own camera extension when it starts. If another app (Discord, a browser, FaceTime) is using the camera at that moment, macOS can leave Backdrop Camera missing from the list afterwards. Quit those apps and restart Backdrop; if it is still missing, restart your Mac.

Requires macOS 15.1 or later on Apple silicon. AI backgrounds need Apple Intelligence. Sharing a window or screen asks for Screen Recording permission the first time; a second camera does not need it.

Verify

Signed with a Developer ID certificate and notarized by Apple. To check the download:

shasum -a 256 -c Backdrop-0.7.0.zip.sha256

Early release

Developed and tested on a single Apple silicon Mac running macOS 27. The engine has automated tests, but the virtual camera, hand tracking and the lenses have had limited real-world testing, so expect rough edges. In particular:

• The second camera was built and tested without a second camera. The capture is the same code as the main camera's and the rest is covered by tests and pictures, but plugging one in, pulling it out in the middle of a call, an iPhone as a Continuity Camera and two cameras on one USB hub have not been tried with real hardware. Only one second camera can be shown at a time, and it cannot be shown together with a shared screen. It is shown as it arrives (a phone held upright gives a tall picture; there is no rotate or mirror option) and is limited to 720p.
• Present's hand control and Dragon Ball's poses were tuned without real hands, on made-up hands and Vision's reading of emoji hands, so how easily a pinch grabs and how a real cupped hand reads are the first things to tune.
• Dragon Ball is heavier than most lenses: its top form in the middle of a move took about 20 ms a frame on a busy Mac in the tests, so check it in a real call before relying on it at 30 frames a second.
• Hand and face thresholds in the older lenses are still tuned on drawn faces and hands, and speed was measured on one busy Mac.

Backdrop 0.6.0

What's new: a Studio window, Present, and Dragon Ball

Present. Share a window or your whole screen and arrange it with your hands. Pick what to share in the new Present pane, then choose how it appears: a Floating Panel over your backdrop, or a Presenter view with you cut out in front of your screen or as a small camera bubble beside it. Turn on hand control and the picture works like a trackpad the size of the frame: pinch to grab the panel, move your hand to drag it, use both hands to resize it, let go and it glides to a stop and snaps into place, double-pinch to fill the frame. Layout presets: Left, Right, Centre, Corner Bubble and Side by Side. The grab handles, the how-to hand and the status cards are drawn only on your own preview, never in the picture that goes out to your call. A red dot joins the menu bar icon while your screen is going out, and ⌃⌥P pauses it. You can pick a specific display or window, show or hide the pointer, and capture at 30 or 60 frames a second.

Dragon Ball. One lens under Faces › Anime that uses your face, your hands and your outline together. Hold both fists up and still to power up through nine forms, from Dragon Ball Z (Super Saiyan, 2, 3) to Dragon Ball Super (God, Blue, Blue Kaioken, Ultra Ego, Ultra Instinct Sign, Ultra Instinct), each with its own hair, eyes, brows and aura. Then fire moves from the show with your hands, sized and coloured by the form you are in: Kamehameha, Final Flash, Special Beam Cannon, Instant Transmission, Ki Blast, Finger Beam, Spirit Bomb, Destructo Disc, Solar Flare and Zanzoken. Every move is a pose held for a moment, so waving at your friends does not set one off. Hold both open palms low and apart to power back down.

The Studio. A full window next to the menu bar popover, with panes for Backgrounds, Present, Lenses, Automation, Camera and Settings (⌘1 to ⌘6, and ⌘, for Settings anywhere). The camera switch and what is on the picture stay in the sidebar.

Install

1. Unzip it and drag Backdrop.app into Applications. It has to live there for macOS to accept its camera extension.
2. Open it. Click the menu bar icon, then Set Up Backdrop Camera, and approve it in System Settings › General › Login Items & Extensions › Camera Extensions.
3. Turn the camera on, then choose Backdrop Camera in your video app.

Upgrading: replace the app in Applications and open it. It updates its own camera extension when it starts. If another app (Discord, a browser, FaceTime) is using the camera at that moment, macOS can leave Backdrop Camera missing from the list afterwards. Quit those apps and restart Backdrop; if it is still missing, restart your Mac.

Requires macOS 15.1 or later on Apple silicon. AI backgrounds need Apple Intelligence. Sharing a window or screen asks for Screen Recording permission the first time.

Verify

Signed with a Developer ID certificate and notarized by Apple. To check the download:

shasum -a 256 -c Backdrop-0.6.0.zip.sha256

Early release

Developed and tested on a single Apple silicon Mac running macOS 27. The engine has automated tests, but the virtual camera, hand tracking and the lenses have had limited real-world testing, so expect rough edges. In particular:

• Present was checked on drawn frames, test hands and screenshots, not in a real call. Live capture of real windows, the picker's live thumbnails and dragging the panel with a real hand in front of the camera have not been tried end to end. The pinch timing, the grab and resize feel and the snapping are the first things to tune on real hands. The picker's thumbnails refresh one after another every few seconds, and the camera bubble is framed on the middle of your cutout, not on your face.
• Dragon Ball's hand poses were measured on made-up hands and on Vision's reading of emoji hands. How Vision reads a real cupped hand for the Kamehameha, and how much a real palm's size jitters, are the first things to tune. A palm pushed at the camera while saying "stop" can fire a Ki Blast. Moves are measured from your face, so none fires with no face in view. Blue and Blue Kaioken have nearly the same hair, and Super Saiyan and Super Saiyan 2 differ mostly in their aura.
• Dragon Ball is heavier than most lenses. The top form in the middle of a move took about 20 ms a frame on a busy Mac in the tests, so check it in a real call before relying on it at 30 frames a second.
• Hand tracking now idles at 8 looks a second after two seconds with no hand in view, to save power, and goes back to 30 as soon as one appears. This also applies to the hand lenses, so the first moment of a gesture after a long pause can lag slightly.
• Hand and face thresholds in the older lenses are still tuned on drawn faces and hands, and speed was measured on one busy Mac.

Backdrop 0.5.0

What's new: hands, living scenes, and a lot more to play with

Hand tracking. Backdrop can now see your hands (up to two, using Vision's hand pose, and only while a lens that uses them is on). Slice fruit with your hand like a sword, shoot targets with a finger gun, play air hockey with both hands, cast fireballs, paint in the air, or hold a light blade. Fifteen filters and eleven games are played with your hands. Lenses that need a hand say so in the picker.

Scenes. A new kind of lens: a living backdrop with hand-drawn animals in it. In the Safari a lion roars, an elephant sprays water and vultures circle; in the Jungle a monkey climbs onto your head and a parrot lands on your raised palm. The animals notice you, come after you, interact, and run off if you wave. Ten scenes: Safari, Jungle, Deep Sea, Dino Park, Haunted Manor, Arctic, Outer Space, Dragon Castle, Enchanted Forest and Pirate Cove.

A lot more content, redone with more care.

• 60 filters: film and photographic looks (Film Noir, Super 8, Instant Photo, Watercolour, Blueprint...), weather and light (rain, fireworks, northern lights, campfire...), and hand filters.
• 62 face lenses: costumes that fit your head (animals, wizard, pirate, astronaut, robot...), lenses that react to your expression (hearts, tears, storm cloud, anime eyes, face scanner...) and smoother funhouse warps.
• 32 games played with your hands, face or whole body, all with one consistent set of screens kept low in the frame so nothing covers your face.
• 68 built-in backgrounds drawn in code: studio rooms, places, live scenes, mesh gradients and lit studio walls.
• 30 sample lens packs to open and copy. New ones are added to your Lenses folder when you update; ones you deleted stay deleted.

A new lens picker. Every lens now has a real preview, with search, sub-groups, Favourites and Recent, in both the menu bar and the Studio.

Install

1. Unzip it and drag Backdrop.app into Applications. It has to live there for macOS to accept its camera extension.
2. Open it. Click the menu bar icon, then Set Up Backdrop Camera, and approve it in System Settings › General › Login Items & Extensions › Camera Extensions.
3. Turn the camera on, then choose Backdrop Camera in your video app.

Upgrading: replace the app in Applications and open it. It updates its own camera extension when it starts. If another app (Discord, a browser, FaceTime) is using the camera at that moment, macOS can leave Backdrop Camera missing from the list afterwards. Quit those apps and restart Backdrop; if it is still missing, restart your Mac.

Requires macOS 15.1 or later on Apple silicon. AI backgrounds need Apple Intelligence.

Verify

Signed with a Developer ID certificate and notarized by Apple. To check the download:

shasum -a 256 -c Backdrop-0.5.0.zip.sha256

Early release

Developed and tested on a single Apple silicon Mac running macOS 27. The engine has automated tests, but the virtual camera, hand tracking and the lenses have had limited real-world testing, so expect rough edges. In particular:

• Hand tracking was tuned without real hands. The gesture rules were built on made-up hands and on Vision's reading of emoji hands. The finger-gun trigger, the poke speed in Whack-a-Mole, the gesture vote in Rock Paper Scissors and similar details are the first things to tune on real hands. A finger pointed straight at the camera looks like a curled finger to a 2D tracker, and a very fast swipe can blur a hand out of tracking for a moment.
• Face lenses were tuned on drawn faces. Costumes now fit a longer head, but where things sit and how far you have to open your mouth, raise your eyebrows or smile may still need tuning. The "Kisses" lens guesses at real lip proportions.
• Speed was measured on one busy Mac. Each lens is built to cost a few milliseconds a frame, and a sample from every category held 30 fps in tests, but your numbers may differ.
• The new lens picker was checked offscreen, not in the running app.

Backdrop 0.4.0

What's new: a lens library, and lenses you can make yourself

The Lenses pane in the Studio is now a library: search, favourites, categories, and a card for each lens with its description, author and any problems found with it. The menu bar's lens row follows the same list.

• Make your own lens. A lens is a folder with a lens.json and any pictures it uses. No code, so lenses are safe to share. Pin pictures, emoji, text and shapes to your eyes, nose, mouth, forehead, head top, chin or cheeks; switch things on with a smile, a blink, an open mouth or raised eyebrows; bob, pulse, spin, wiggle, float or drop them in; bulge or pinch parts of the face; emit rainbows, fire, hearts, sparkles, confetti or bubbles; tint the whole picture. Five examples are put in your Lenses folder the first time. The format is in docs/LENS_FORMAT.md.
• Add, open and reload. Studio › Lenses › ⋯ has Add Lens…, Open Lenses Folder and Reload. Backdrop also looks for changes whenever it comes to the front, and puts a lens on again if its files changed. A lens that can't be used is listed at the top of the pane with a Show in Finder button; one with a bad part just skips that part and tells you.
• Blink and smile join mouth-open and eyebrow-raise as things a lens can react to. While a face lens is on, the menu bar shows all four live readings.

Sturdier

• A shared lens can't hurt you. Lenses are checked before they are used: no symlinks (a stranger's lens can no longer point at a picture elsewhere on your Mac), caps on file size, picture size, number of pictures, layers, emitters, warps and emoji length, and a fixed particle budget. Pictures are only decoded when you put a lens on, so a big library no longer slows Backdrop down at launch.
• Face signals misfire less. Turning your head no longer reads as raised eyebrows, a squint in a smile isn't a blink, a wink isn't a blink, the "ee" in a word isn't a smile, and a held smile doesn't fade. Eyebrow and mouth readings re-settle after you look away.
• Backdrop Camera. The app now only replaces the camera extension with a newer one, takes its installed state from macOS, and says when macOS wants a restart to finish. If macOS hasn't started the camera after an update, the menu bar says so and offers Restart Backdrop.
• Video order and restarts. Frames can no longer go out of order when a background is switched off while a cutout is in flight, and video and live-window backgrounds resume after the camera is turned off and on again (they used to stay frozen).
• Smaller fixes. Favourites survive a typo in lens.json, JSON errors name the line and column, lens names that collide no longer share an ID, and a lens with text shows an un-mirrored preview so the words read the right way round.

Install

1. Unzip it and drag Backdrop.app into Applications. It has to live there for macOS to accept its camera extension.
2. Open it. Click the menu bar icon, then Set Up Backdrop Camera, and approve it in System Settings › General › Login Items & Extensions › Camera Extensions.
3. Turn the camera on, then choose Backdrop Camera in your video app.

Upgrading: replace the app in Applications and open it. It updates its own camera extension when it starts. If another app (Discord, a browser, FaceTime) is using the camera at that moment, macOS can leave Backdrop Camera missing from the list afterwards. Quit those apps and restart Backdrop; if it is still missing, restart your Mac.

Requires macOS 15.1 or later on Apple silicon. AI backgrounds need Apple Intelligence.

Verify

Signed with a Developer ID certificate and notarized by Apple. To check the download:

shasum -a 256 -c Backdrop-0.4.0.zip.sha256

Early release

Developed and tested on a single Apple silicon Mac running macOS 27. The engine has automated tests, but the virtual camera and the lenses have had limited real-world testing, so expect rough edges. In particular:

• Face lenses were built and tested against drawn faces, not recorded real ones. The face readings are better reasoned than in 0.3.0, but where the crown, ears and hat sit, and how far you have to open your mouth, raise your eyebrows or smile, may still need tuning.
• The new Lenses library and the missing-camera notice have not been checked on more than one Mac.
• There's no Intel build, and no hand tracking yet.
• The camera is switched on and off by hand (menu bar or ⌃⌥B). It doesn't start by itself when another app opens Backdrop Camera.
• Backdrop Camera deliberately advertises 60 fps so macOS doesn't layer its own Background effect over the result. If that effect is on for Backdrop's own camera input, the app warns you.

Bug reports are welcome as issues.

Backdrop 0.3.0

What's new: Lenses

Filters, face effects and games that sit on top of your picture, in the app and in Backdrop Camera, so everyone on your call sees them. Pick one from the Lenses row in the menu bar, or the Lenses pane in the Studio, which has a live preview and keeps your high scores.

• Filters (10): Aura, Rainbow Aura, Ghost Trails, Comic Book, Pixel Art, Glitch, Matrix Rain, Mirror, Kaleidoscope, Snowfall.
• Faces (10): Cat Ears, Deal With It (sunglasses), Crown, Party Hat, Big Eyes, Chipmunk, Big Mouth, Rainbow and Fire Breath (open your mouth), Laser Eyes (raise your eyebrows).
• Games (5): Balloon Pop (swat the balloons), Breakout (you are the paddle), Ball Pit, Mouth Catch (open wide to eat the food, not the bombs), Flappy Face (your face is the bird; move your head to fly).

Shortcuts: ⌃⌥↑ / ⌃⌥↓ switch lens, ⌃⌥R starts a new game. Games wait for you to step into the picture, count down, and pause if you leave.

Smoother switching

• "Switching to…" shows while a change is on its way. Choosing a background or lens now says so over the preview until the new picture is really showing, so a slow one (a live window, a video, a face lens finding your face) no longer looks like nothing happened.
• Faster frames. The cutout of the next frame now runs while the current one is being composited, instead of one after the other. With the camera feeding it flat out, that is about a third more frames a second (from roughly 30 to roughly 43 on the test Mac), which leaves room to keep up when the Mac is busy. Each frame is still composited with the cutout made from that very frame.
• Lighter on the CPU. The step that smooths your outline from frame to frame now works 16 pixels at a time.
• More in the log. Frame rate, frame time, lens and background changes and how often your face is found are recorded in the system log, so a problem can be traced after the fact.

Install

1. Unzip it and drag Backdrop.app into Applications. It has to live there for macOS to accept its camera extension.
2. Open it. Click the menu bar icon, then Set Up Backdrop Camera, and approve it in System Settings › General › Login Items & Extensions › Camera Extensions.
3. Turn the camera on, then choose Backdrop Camera in your video app.

Upgrading: replace the app in Applications and open it. It updates its own camera extension when it starts.

Requires macOS 15.1 or later on Apple silicon. AI backgrounds need Apple Intelligence.

Verify

Signed with a Developer ID certificate and notarized by Apple. To check the download:

shasum -a 256 -c Backdrop-0.3.0.zip.sha256

Early release

Developed and tested on a single Apple silicon Mac running macOS 27. The engine has automated tests, but the virtual camera and the lenses have had limited real-world testing, so expect rough edges. In particular:

• Face lenses were built and tested against drawn faces, not recorded real ones. Where the crown, ears and hat sit, and how far you have to open your mouth or raise your eyebrows, may need tuning. While a face lens is on, the menu bar shows your live mouth and eyebrow readings.
• Games read your body from the cutout, so poor light or a busy background makes them harder. While a game is on, the preview shows what other people see (not a mirror) so the score reads the right way round.
• There's no Intel build, and no hand tracking yet.
• The camera is switched on and off by hand (menu bar or ⌃⌥B). It doesn't start by itself when another app opens Backdrop Camera.
• Backdrop Camera deliberately advertises 60 fps so macOS doesn't layer its own Background effect over the result. If that effect is on for Backdrop's own camera input, the app warns you.

Bug reports are welcome as issues.

Backdrop 0.2.1

What's fixed

• The virtual camera can now be installed from the download. 0.1.0 and 0.2.0 shipped the camera extension under a file name macOS rejects, so Backdrop Camera could not be set up from those versions. If you tried one of them and the camera never appeared, this is why. Install this version instead.
• Backdrop recovers on its own when video stops. If the camera feed errors or goes quiet, it restarts it. If the camera extension restarts or stops taking frames, it reconnects. It tells macOS it is live video, so a menu bar app that isn't in front doesn't get throttled. And when frames stall briefly, other apps see the last picture for a couple of seconds instead of a "Backdrop is off" card at the first hiccup.
• Diagnostics that stick around. Camera and connection events are now kept in the system log, so a problem can be traced after the fact.

Install

1. Unzip it and drag Backdrop.app into Applications. It has to live there for macOS to accept its camera extension.
2. Open it. Click the menu bar icon, then Set Up Backdrop Camera, and approve it in System Settings › General › Login Items & Extensions › Camera Extensions.
3. Turn the camera on, then choose Backdrop Camera in your video app.

Upgrading: replace the app in Applications and open it. It updates its own camera extension when it starts.

Requires macOS 15.1 or later on Apple silicon. AI backgrounds need Apple Intelligence.

Verify

Signed with a Developer ID certificate and notarized by Apple. To check the download:

shasum -a 256 -c Backdrop-0.2.1.zip.sha256

Early release

Developed and tested on a single Apple silicon Mac running macOS 27. The engine has automated tests, but the virtual camera has had limited real-world testing, so expect rough edges. In particular, the first-time install of this downloadable build hasn't yet been tried on a clean Mac; the fix was confirmed by installing and updating the same extension, named the same way, from a development build. Known gaps:

• There's no Intel build.
• The camera is switched on and off by hand (menu bar or ⌃⌥B). It doesn't start by itself when another app opens Backdrop Camera.
• Backdrop Camera deliberately advertises 60 fps so macOS doesn't layer its own Background effect over the result. If that effect is on for Backdrop's own camera input, the app warns you.

Bug reports are welcome as issues.

Backdrop 0.2.0

⚠️ The virtual camera can't be set up from this version. Please download 0.2.1 instead.

This release packaged its camera extension under a file name macOS rejects, so Backdrop Camera won't install. That was confirmed when updating an already-installed camera, and a first-time install uses the same check. 0.2.1 fixes it.

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What's new

• 3D Maze: the old Windows maze screensaver, behind you. A first-person walk through red-brick corridors with a tiled floor and torchlight. It pauses to turn at junctions, about-faces at dead ends, prefers corridors it hasn't walked yet, and builds a fresh maze every few minutes. Pick it from the menu bar grid, next to 3D Pipes.

Install

1. Unzip it and drag Backdrop.app into Applications. It has to live there for macOS to accept its camera extension.
2. Open it. Click the menu bar icon, then Set Up Backdrop Camera, and approve it in System Settings › General › Login Items & Extensions › Camera Extensions.
3. Turn the camera on, then choose Backdrop Camera in your video app.

Upgrading from 0.1.0: replace the app in Applications and open it. It updates its own camera extension when it starts.

Requires macOS 15.1 or later on Apple silicon. AI backgrounds need Apple Intelligence.

Verify

Signed with a Developer ID certificate and notarized by Apple. To check the download:

shasum -a 256 -c Backdrop-0.2.0.zip.sha256

Early release

Developed and tested on a single Apple silicon Mac running macOS 27. The engine has automated tests, but the virtual camera has had limited real-world testing, so expect rough edges. Known gaps:

• There's no Intel build.
• The camera is switched on and off by hand (menu bar or ⌃⌥B). It doesn't start by itself when another app opens Backdrop Camera.
• Backdrop Camera deliberately advertises 60 fps so macOS doesn't layer its own Background effect over the result. If that effect is on for Backdrop's own camera input, the app warns you.

Bug reports are welcome as issues.

Backdrop 0.1.0

⚠️ The virtual camera can't be set up from this version. Please download 0.2.1 instead.

This release packaged its camera extension under a file name macOS rejects, so Backdrop Camera won't install. That was confirmed when updating an already-installed camera, and a first-time install uses the same check. 0.2.1 fixes it.

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The first public release of Backdrop: a menu bar app that replaces your camera background and shows up as its own camera ("Backdrop Camera") in Discord, Zoom, Meet, FaceTime and other apps.

Install

1. Unzip it and drag Backdrop.app into Applications. It has to live there for macOS to accept its camera extension.
2. Open it. Click the menu bar icon, then Set Up Backdrop Camera, and approve it in System Settings › General › Login Items & Extensions › Camera Extensions.
3. Turn the camera on, then choose Backdrop Camera in your video app.

Requires macOS 15.1 or later on Apple silicon. AI backgrounds need Apple Intelligence.

What's in it

• Live backgrounds: looping video, a live window or your whole screen, animated gradients, the classic Windows 3D Pipes screensaver, and a parallax option.
• AI backgrounds from a text description, generated on your Mac by Image Playground.
• Automation by app, calendar event or time of day, with global shortcuts: ⌃⌥→ and ⌃⌥← to cycle, ⌃⌥B to turn the camera on or off.
• Cutout controls: quality, edge softness, light wrap and colour match.

Verify

Signed with a Developer ID certificate and notarized by Apple. To check the download:

shasum -a 256 -c Backdrop-0.1.0.zip.sha256

Early release

Developed and tested on a single Apple silicon Mac running macOS 27. The engine has automated tests, but the virtual camera has had limited real-world testing, so expect rough edges. Known gaps:

• There's no Intel build.
• The camera is switched on and off by hand (menu bar or ⌃⌥B). It doesn't start by itself when another app opens Backdrop Camera.
• Backdrop Camera deliberately advertises 60 fps so macOS doesn't layer its own Background effect over the result. If that effect is on for Backdrop's own camera input, the app warns you.

Bug reports are welcome as issues.