How to Change Screensaver on Mac

You're going to stare at your Mac for hours today. Might as well make it pretty. Most people stick with Apple's default screensavers—the same abstract swirls that have been around since flip phones were a thing. Knowing how to change the screensaver on your Mac is one of the easiest ways to make your digital workspace feel like yours.

This guide walks through the simple steps for macOS 26 (Tahoe) and newer, from digging into Apple's surprisingly good built-in options to customizing the settings to get them just right. It's a small tweak, but it makes a huge difference.

How to Find and Change Your Mac Screensaver Settings

Ready to move on from the default 'Drift' or 'Flurry' animations? Finding your Mac's screensaver settings is dead simple, though Apple moved things around in recent versions of macOS.

For modern versions like macOS 26 (Tahoe), here's how to do it:

1. Click the Apple icon () in the top-left corner of your screen.
2. Select System Settings… from the dropdown menu.
3. In the sidebar, scroll down and click on Screen Saver.

You'll be greeted with a gallery of Apple's built-in options. Clicking any of them will give you a live preview on the right. If you're on an older version of macOS, the process is nearly identical, but you'll start in an app called 'System Preferences' instead.

Using Apple's Built-In Aerial Screensavers

Apple does offer some genuinely beautiful choices. The Aerial screensavers are the star of the show—high-definition drone footage of landscapes, cities, and underwater scenes. They're the same tech Apple uses for the Apple TV, and they look fantastic on a Retina display.

You can find them in the Screen Saver settings under categories like Landscape, Cityscape, Underwater, and Earth. They're a massive step up from the abstract patterns of yesteryear.

You can also point the screensaver to your own photo library, but a word of warning: if you have a massive library, this is a known performance killer that can slow even powerful Macs to a crawl. One user on Apple's forums watched their 70,000-photo library spike their iMac's memory usage to a staggering 70GB, crashing the machine. You can see the wild details in this Apple forum discussion. Stick with the built-in Aerials instead.

Fine-Tuning Your Screensaver's Behavior

Picking a screensaver is the fun part. Making it show up when you want it to is the real trick.

Setting the Timer

Inside the Screen Saver settings, you'll find a setting that says "Start after". This lets you tell your Mac how long to wait before the animation kicks in. Set it to something short like 2 minutes, and you'll see it often. Go longer, like 20 minutes, and you'll save a bit of power on your MacBook.

Activating Instantly with Hot Corners

There's a more direct way to trigger your screensaver—a feature most people never touch: Hot Corners. This lets you start your screensaver instantly, just by whipping your mouse into a corner of the screen.

1. In System Settings, go to Desktop & Dock.
2. Scroll all the way to the bottom and click the Hot Corners… button.
3. Choose a corner and select Start Screen Saver from its dropdown menu.

It's perfect for when you're stepping away from your desk and want to quickly hide your work behind something beautiful.

A Screensaver Worth Looking At

Apple's Aerials are great. But what if your screensaver was a 4K crackling fireplace? Or a neon cityscape with ambient music? The same native technology Apple uses for its beautiful drone footage can do so much more.

This is why I created gifPaper. It uses native Apple technology to turn over 150 curated, seamlessly looping videos into your screensaver, each with its own ambient music. Unlike other wallpaper apps that rely on clunky overlays, gifPaper is a native solution that just works. It's the upgrade your Mac has been waiting for, turning idle screen time into something you actually want to look at.

You can browse the full collection of fireplace wallpaper or check out some chill lofi wallpaper scenes.

The Mac Customization Trifecta: Lock Screen, Desktop, and Screensaver

gifPaper is more than just a screensaver app. It's a tool that syncs up your Mac's entire visual theme in one action. You pick one moving wallpaper, and it instantly becomes your lock screen, desktop, and screensaver.

Wake your Mac, and you're greeted by a video loop that smoothly slows to a stop as you log in—the exact same behavior as Apple's native wallpapers, but with a scene you actually chose. The desktop shows a matching still frame by default to save battery, but you can toggle on full animation if you want. It completes the Mac customization trifecta.

This guide focused on the screensaver, but if you want to complete the set, you can learn how to change the wallpaper on your Mac or set up a custom Mac lock screen here. For a deep dive, see the complete guide on how to get live wallpapers on Mac.

Common Mac Screensaver Questions (FAQ)

When it comes to mac screensaver settings, a few questions pop up again and again.

Can I Use My Own Video as a Screensaver on Mac?

Not natively, no. macOS doesn't let you just pick an MP4 file and set it as your screensaver. You're stuck with Apple's built-in Aerials or photo-based slideshows. If you want to use your own looping videos or choose from a wider library, you'll need a third-party app like gifPaper for Mac.

Why Is My Mac Screensaver Not Working?

It's almost always one of two things. First, double-check your settings in System Settings > Screen Saver. Make sure the "Start after" timer isn't set to Never. I've done it myself. Second, look at your Lock Screen settings (confusingly, this is where display sleep settings live). If your display is set to turn off before the screensaver has a chance to kick in, you'll never see it. The display-off timer needs to be longer than the screensaver-start timer.

How Do I Make My Screensaver My Wallpaper on Mac?

You can't—at least, not with Apple's built-in tools. macOS treats screensavers and desktop wallpapers as two completely separate things. There's no switch to make your slick Aerial screensaver play on your desktop. This is another problem third-party apps solve by unifying the experience, letting you apply the same live video to your lock screen, desktop wallpaper, and screensaver all at once.