Video Wallpapers

Video wallpapers

Video wallpapers play a looping video file. Open Wallpaper Engine plays them without Wallpaper Engine's assets and without Steam.

Formats

Format	How it plays	Notes
MP4, MOV, M4V (H.264, HEVC)	AVFoundation (Apple AVKit)	Full feature set
WebM (VP8/VP9)	WebKit's built-in <video> player (Chromium's when the Chromium web engine plugin is installed), used only when AVFoundation can't play the file	See the limits below

Controls

In Details › Properties for a video:

Control	What it does
Placement	Fill, Fit, Center, Stretch or Zoom
Volume	The video's own volume
Video Speed / Audio Speed	Playback rates, with a toggle to link them

The menu bar's Mute and Pause apply to videos too, and so do the playback rules, per display. A video shown on several displays uses one player and plays its sound once.

Music sync

Video wallpapers can move with the music: Sync Video to Music in Details (User Scene Settings) drives zoom, pace, tilt and saturation from the sound your Mac plays. It needs the System Audio Recording permission (Screen & System Audio Recording before macOS 14.2). A video with its own soundtrack follows that; when it is silent, it follows whatever else is playing.

WebM limits

WebM plays through WebKit, confined to the wallpaper's folder (no network). Placement, looping, volume, speed, per-display pause and music sync work.

Video Framework (experimental)

Settings › Optimizations › Video › Video Framework chooses how videos are drawn:

Option	What it does
Apple AVKit	Plays the video in a standard player view
Metal (effects apply to video) (default on a Mac with Metal)	Draws the video through the scene renderer, the way Wallpaper Engine does, so effects and music sync apply to it. It needs the Wallpaper Engine assets; without them videos play through AVKit. Experimental.

Adding videos

Use + › Add Video Wallpaper…, drag a file onto the Installed grid, or add a link with + › Add Video/Image URL…. See Importing wallpapers.

Read more (for developers): Video and web internals