KineticDesqYour desktop, actually alive.
A live video wallpaper for macOS. Your own footage, rotating, per monitor — not a screensaver pretending to be one.
macOS 14.0 or later · Notarized by Apple
Built like a real app, not a toy.
Per-display everything
Different folder, fill style, and order per monitor — or mirror one playlist across all of them. Each screen renders through its own player, independently.
Rotation that respects the clip
Switch on a fixed timer, or the instant a video actually ends — no mid-scene cuts. Resume picks up the same clip after a restart.
Independent theming
App chrome and desktop wallpaper each follow their own Light / Dark / System choice — a dim treatment on the video itself, not a second asset to manage.
A library, not a file picker
Every clip in your folder as a thumbnail grid — play one instantly, reveal it in Finder, or retire it to the Trash. No more guessing filenames.
Rotation that respects what's actually playing.
Two ways to move to the next clip — pick the one that matches how your footage is cut.
Fixed interval
Advance on a timer you set. A 20-second background check keeps it precise without waking the CPU more than it has to.
Rotate on video end
Advance the instant a clip actually finishes — no mid-scene cuts, no waiting through a timer that doesn't match the footage.
Quit and relaunch, or restart the Mac entirely — KineticDesq picks up the same clip it left on. No extra setup, it just remembers.
Every screen, configured on its own terms.
Uncustomized monitors mirror one shared playlist by default — the moment you want one screen to behave differently, KineticDesq lets you detach just that setting, not the whole display.
Fill style
Fill, Fit, or Stretch — per screen, via AVLayerVideoGravity.
Folder override
Point one monitor at its own folder without breaking the others.
One-click reset
“Reset to Default” hands a customized display straight back to the mirrored group.
Built-in Display
Fill · In Order · Default playlist
Studio Display
Fit · Shuffle · /Videos/office-loops
Built to disappear into the background.
The player pauses the instant it’s covered by a fullscreen app, a hidden Space, or the lock screen, and resumes the moment it’s visible again — every figure here came from live sampling on real hardware, not a spec sheet.
CPU while a video is on screen
hardware-decoded, not software
RAM footprint
consistent across 4K sources
CPU when occluded
auto-pauses behind fullscreen apps, hidden Spaces, and on lock
CPU tracks scene motion, not file size or resolution — and two independent 4K streams on two monitors cost the same as one, since Apple Silicon decodes video on a dedicated hardware block the CPU never touches.
The Electron app it replaced, built in natively.
Mini and long breaks, a real countdown, and a panel that never steals focus from what you're doing — running in the same lightweight process as your wallpaper, not a second app sitting in your dock.
Independent timers
Mini and long breaks, each with their own enable/duration/interval.
Pause, not just skip
30 minutes, 1 hour, 2 hours, or until morning — from the menu bar, without opening Settings.
Your color, your material
Accent color and overlay material (Regular, Thick, Ultra Thin, Chrome) — themed, not fixed.
Never steals focus
A non-activating panel — it appears, it doesn't yank you out of what you were typing.
Step away from the screen for a moment.
Lock screen sync — labeled honestly, not oversold.
KineticDesq can carry your current clip onto the lock screen by re-encoding it into an Apple Aerial slot you've already downloaded. It's real, it works, and we tell you exactly when it won't rather than pretending it always does.
The kind of craft you only notice when it's missing.
Your original wallpaper, never lost
The first time it touches your Desktop Picture, KineticDesq backs it up — one click restores it, even after you uninstall.
Signed, notarized, auto-updating
Every release is Apple-notarized and update-checked via Sparkle, with EdDSA-signed artifacts so a tampered download can't install silently.
A Settings window redesigned three times
Each pass shipped for a real usability bug, not an aesthetic itch — now a sidebar that matches System Settings, not a wall of toggles.
Install it in under a minute.
Drag it into Applications. Point it at a folder of videos. That's the whole setup.