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Displays and Playback Rules
Open Wallpaper Engine can show a different wallpaper on each display, pause displays independently, and follow rules that save power when you are busy or on battery. This page covers Display Settings, the playback rules in Settings › Performance, and Sync properties across displays.
Click Displays in the main window's toolbar.
- A diagram shows your displays as arranged in macOS; the main display is starred. Each shows its name and wallpaper, or Disabled.
- Click a display to select it; ⇧-click to select several. All Desktops selects every display.
- The card for the selection shows the name, resolution, an Enabled switch, the wallpaper's thumbnail, title and type, and Remove.
- Set Wallpaper in Details applies to the selected display(s).
- Layout picks how wallpapers cover the displays, as in Wallpaper Engine: Wallpaper per display, Stretch single wallpaper (one wallpaper spans the displays' bounding box) or Clone single wallpaper (every display shows the main clone display's wallpaper). The screen saver has its own layout picker.
- Right-click a display to add it with the selected displays to a Stretch Group or Clone Group, Add Split (divide it vertically or horizontally), choose the Main Clone Display, Flip Clone Display, or Mute it.
- The Profile menu saves the arrangement as a named profile (Save profile…) and imports a Wallpaper Engine profile (Import Wallpaper Engine Profile…).
- Done (Return) or Esc closes the sheet.
Newly connected displays are detected and enabled automatically. Wallpapers keep playing across all Spaces (desktops).
Note
A wallpaper shown on several displays with the same properties is rendered once and presented on each display at its own size and placement. That saves a lot of GPU time.
- Menu bar › Pause pauses playback; Mute silences it. Stop Wallpapers (beside Pause, also in the Playback menu and as a hotkey) unloads every wallpaper to free its CPU, GPU and memory; the desktop shows your macOS desktop picture until you resume. See Menu bar and keyboard shortcuts.
- A scene doesn't stop abruptly: it eases its speed down to zero, as Wallpaper Engine does, then stops drawing.
- The playback rules below can pause one display while the others keep playing.
In Settings › Performance › Playback:
| Rule | When it applies | Options |
|---|---|---|
| Other Application Focused | Another app's window is frontmost on a display (Finder's desktop and OWE don't count) | Keep Running, Mute, Pause* |
| Other Application Maximized | Another app's window covers at least 95 % of a display's visible area | Keep Running, Mute, Pause*, Stop (free memory) |
| Other Application Fullscreen | A window covers the whole display (a native full-screen Space) | Keep Running, Mute, Pause*, Stop (free memory) |
| Other Application Playing Audio | Another app is playing sound (macOS 14.2+) | Keep Running, Mute, Pause |
| Display asleep | The displays sleep | Keep Running, Pause, Stop (free memory) |
| Laptop on battery | The Mac runs on battery | Keep Running, Pause, Stop (free memory) |
* With more than one display, "Pause" becomes two choices, as in Wallpaper Engine:
- Pause per Display pauses only the display the window is on.
- Pause All pauses every display.
With one display there is just Pause. All rules default to Keep Running.
How it works in practice:
- A window belongs to the display it overlaps most. Minimized, hidden and other-Space windows, the menu bar, the Dock, overlays, and apps without a Dock icon (menu bar apps, background tools) are ignored.
- Mute and Stop act on the window's display too. Stop hides that display's wallpaper window to free memory.
- A wallpaper on several displays keeps rendering while any of them plays; paused displays keep their last frame.
- Web wallpapers are told they are paused and have their media suspended.
- Application Rules › Edit sets rules for specific apps: when a chosen app is running, focused, maximized, fullscreen or playing audio, pause, mute or stop the wallpapers, or load a wallpaper, playlist or display profile. "Playing audio" needs macOS 14.2 or later.
As in Wallpaper Engine, the same wallpaper on two displays has independent user properties: change a colour on one display, and the other keeps its own.
- Settings › Optimizations › Sync properties across displays (off by default) makes every display use one shared set of properties.
- With it off, displays whose properties are equal still share one running instance; a display whose properties differ runs its own.
- The Details panel and Scene Edit / Export edit the selected displays' properties.
Each running wallpaper plays its sound once. A web wallpaper plays from its "audible" display (the main display when it shows it); pages on other displays are muted. Settings › Optimizations › Audio Output silences all wallpapers.
Read more (for developers): Architecture ("Wallpaper instances") and Timelines and the SceneClock