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Open Wallpaper Engine (OWE) is a free, open-source macOS app that plays Wallpaper Engine (WE) wallpapers live on your desktop: scene, video and web wallpapers, drawn with Metal. It is released under the GPL-3.0 licence by Deepratna Awale, and builds on the original Open Wallpaper Engine by Haren Chen and MrWindDog.
Note
Open Wallpaper Engine is not affiliated with Wallpaper Engine or Valve. Wallpapers belong to their authors. See Legal and credits.
| Who it is for | Start here | |
|---|---|---|
| User Guide | Anyone who wants to install OWE, add wallpapers and tune them | User Guide |
| Developer Guide | Anyone who wants to build OWE, understand how it works, or contribute | Developer Guide |
- New here? Read What is Open Wallpaper Engine?, then Requirements and Installing.
- Scenes look empty or say they need assets? Set up Wallpaper Engine assets.
- Want Workshop wallpapers? See SteamCMD and Steam login and Steam Workshop.
- Something wrong? Try Troubleshooting and the FAQ.
- Building from source? Go to Building and running.
| Wallpaper type | Status in OWE |
|---|---|
| Scene | Plays, rendered with Metal through each wallpaper's own shaders. Needs WE's assets from your Steam copy. |
| Video | Plays (MP4, MOV, M4V through AVFoundation; WebM through WebKit). |
| Web | Plays (HTML/WebGL, with user properties, audio and Now Playing). |
| Application | Not supported. These are Windows programs. |
- Requires macOS 14 Sonoma or later on a Mac with Metal. The Liquid Glass interface appears on macOS 26.
- Languages: English plus 15 others. See Languages.
- Privacy: no server, no analytics; it contacts Valve, GitHub for app updates (no personal data; can be turned off), and an optional plugin's publisher only when you install that plugin. See Privacy.