OS X Quick Tip: Make your Screen Saver your Wallpaper


Here’s a Quick Tip from MacResearch.org

1) Set your screen saver to something cool (I use the RSS Visualizer)
2) Fire up terminal
3) Type the following:

/System/Library/Frameworks/ScreenSaver.framework/Resources/
ScreenSaverEngine.app/Contents/MacOS/ScreenSaverEngine -background

Look at your Desktop.

To stop the whole thing and return your desktop to normal just stop kill the process (^C).

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Kokou Adzo

Kokou Adzo is a stalwart in the tech journalism community, has been chronicling the ever-evolving world of Apple products and innovations for over a decade. As a Senior Author at Apple Gazette, Kokou combines a deep passion for technology with an innate ability to translate complex tech jargon into relatable insights for everyday users.

3 Comments

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  1. You can set this to work on startup by doing the following:

    from the terminal:

    $ echo /System/Library/Frameworks/ScreenSaver.framework/Resources/ScreenSaverEngine.app/Contents/MacOS/ScreenSaverEngine -background & > saverBack

    $ chmod +x saverBack

    $ ./saverBack

    To run this in the background on every startup just add it to your Login Items in the Accounts preference in System Preferences.

  2. Small correction. Put a backslash before the ampersand like so:

    $ echo /System/Library/Frameworks/ScreenSaver.framework/Resources/ScreenSaverEngine.app/Contents/MacOS/ScreenSaverEngine -background & > saverBack