13 ms·

Every default macOS wallpaper

538 points by jorgesborges 3y ago

wk_end 3y ago
Everything up through 10.6 makes me feel indescribably warm and fuzzy. I don't like Steve Jobs very much as a person, and I don't quite buy the myth that he was as much of a unique genius as some people believe, but...is it a coincidence that 10.7 marked the end of the (second) Jobs-era at Apple? ...or maybe it's just nostalgia.
- jwells89 3y ago
  > Everything up through 10.6 makes me feel indescribably warm and fuzzy. 10.2/10.3/10.4 are the ones that do it for me. Spent way too much time on my Macs through those years, through which I frequently used the default desktop pictures because they were so smooth and nice to look at, and each OS X release was nicer to use than the last which made for positive associations with each. 10.5/10.6 were good too, but I found the default desktops on those too busy and usually used something else. I also typically used custom themes by way of Shapeshifter[0] because I found the gray metal look of those releases too dark and modded my dock with themes found on MacThemes. As a result the default 10.5/10.6 desktops aren’t emotionally evocative for me. I do however miss the 10.5/10.6 implementation of virtual desktops, which gave you a 2D grid to place desktops on instead of just a line. [0]: https://apple.fandom.com/wiki/ShapeShifter https://apple.fandom.com/wiki/ShapeShifter
alltrue1 3y ago
Tiger is just so nostalgic
johnbehnke 3y ago
The macOS screenshot library from Stephen is also excellent: https://512pixels.net/projects/aqua-screenshot-library/ https://512pixels.net/projects/aqua-screenshot-library/
- fumar 3y ago
  Intense nostalgia. I remember my updating my MacBook from Tiger to Leopard and being inthralled with the new OS welcome video. It was a powerful feeling like a genuine leap was made after rebooting and new powers unlocked. 10.3 used Rokysopp's Eple, and I still love that song and album.
  - xattt 3y ago
    The Welcome videos were technological showcases. Where else were you going to see 1080p videos in 2005-2008?
    - hulitu 3y ago
      IMAX ? /s
- vvillena 3y ago
  Looking back at the 10.4-10.7 era, I really miss those app icons, they were so easy to tell apart from each other just from shape. The rest of the design language was also a marvel in usability, it was so clear what everything was and how to interact with it.
ruined 3y ago
(admirable) these images did incredible psychic damage to kde designers i used the catalina bg until late last year, when they started shipping the former appletv video backgrounds as the default, because it was just so good. seriously, after that on a 5k display, i thought i would never enjoy another desktop background
- _benj 3y ago
  > (admirable) these images did incredible psychic damage to kde designers made me chuckle :-) But for real, there is something about a good wallpaper, at least for me, the wallpaper being the first thing I set on a new linux install. I fully believe that a solid default wallpaper can help with desktop manager adoption (i.e. kde, gnome, xfce4), at least for the bohemians types like me!
  - dylan604 3y ago
    > the wallpaper being the first thing I set on a new linux install For me, that would be the last time I ever see it. I have so many windows open providing me quick access to whatever I need without flipping spaces or whatever, that I just never see the desktop. It's just one of those things that over time of using computers, I just don't care about it any more. I don't begrudge anyone that does, but it is just one of those funny things one realizes how time changes one's outlook
  - Affric 3y ago
    Do you have a recommendation for a good place to source wallpapers? With the photography it’s one of the things Apple get so right about UX.
    - SSLy 3y ago
      unsplash perhaps?
    - _thisdot 3y ago
      Always loved the default wallpapers on Ubuntu too. I still have some old Ubuntu default wallpapers on my Mac!
cmiller1 3y ago
Here's an album containing all of the built in wallpapers in every version including for the classic Mac OS https://photos.google.com/share/AF1QipNNQyeVrqxBdNmBkq9ILswizuj-RYJFNt5GlxJZ90Y6hx0okrVSLKSnmFFbX7j5Mg?key=RV8tSXVJVGdfS1RIQUI0Q3RZZVhlTmw0WmhFZ2V3 https://photos.google.com/share/AF1QipNNQyeVrqxBdNmBkq9ILswi...
yrro 3y ago
Here are some ones from MacOS 7: https://osxdaily.com/2018/01/01/classic-mac-os-tiling-wallpapers/ https://osxdaily.com/2018/01/01/classic-mac-os-tiling-wallpa...
- Waterluvian 3y ago
  Repeating bears in overalls is all I can see when I think System 7 desktop pattern.
  - jwells89 3y ago
    For me it’s the grass, stones, and star patterns. They look way too busy on modern displays but at 640x480 or 800x600 they weren’t too bad.
- mattl 3y ago
  System 7... it didn't become Mac OS until 7.6 or something, and then Mac OS 8 came out very soon after that.
  - MenhirMike 3y ago
    Also conveniently made sure that clone manufacturers (who only had a license for System 7) didn't have a modern Mac OS anymore.
    - mattl 3y ago
      Right except that one clone maker they bought IIRC?
      - MenhirMike 3y ago
        Yeah, they bought out Power Computing.
- jandrese 3y ago
  Even more fun was the fact the wallpaper widget had a little pixel editor built in that let you make your own tiling pattern. I seem to recall that it updated the desktop in realtime as you changed the pixels so you always knew exactly what your pattern looked like tiled.
ChrisMarshallNY 3y ago
The one that mystifies me, is why Apple pulled their original Dubai At Night screensaver[0]. [0] https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=766810966790684 https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=766810966790684 (This seems to be the only place to find it online).
- mig39 3y ago
  I'd take a guess and say that Dubai is one of those places that's a bit paranoid of aerial imagery? Was this filmed with a drone or helicopter? Is it possible the right "permits" weren't obtained before flying over the rush hour traffic?
  - ChrisMarshallNY 3y ago
    I have no idea. It’s an awesome video. I have a couple of friends that used to work for Apple, and neither one has any idea why.
    - 10729287 3y ago
      Could something be copyrighted here ? Eiffel Tower isn't, but lights are : https://www.toureiffel.paris/en/business/use-image-of-eiffel-tower https://www.toureiffel.paris/en/business/use-image-of-eiffel...
  - madeofpalk 3y ago
    There's still a daytime top-down Dubai screensaver video on Apple TV I believe.
    - randgoog 3y ago
      My Apple TV shows downtown LA.
      - madeofpalk 3y ago
        Looks like there's five active Dubai screensavers. The one parent was talking about is missing. https://bzamayo.com/watch-all-the-apple-tv-aerial-video-screensavers#b07cfe1d892930fcb8577321c29e5860 https://bzamayo.com/watch-all-the-apple-tv-aerial-video-scre... also https://aerial-videos.netlify.app/ https://aerial-videos.netlify.app/ https://sylvan.apple.com/Videos/comp_DB_D011_C010_PSNK_DENOISE_v19_SDR_PS_20180914_SDR_2K_AVC.mov https://sylvan.apple.com/Videos/comp_DB_D011_C010_PSNK_DENOI... https://sylvan.apple.com/Videos/comp_DB_D008_C010_PSNK_v21_SDR_PS_20180914_F0F16157_SDR_2K_AVC.mov https://sylvan.apple.com/Videos/comp_DB_D008_C010_PSNK_v21_S... https://sylvan.apple.com/Videos/comp_DB_D002_C003_PSNK_v04_SDR_PS_20180914_SDR_2K_AVC.mov https://sylvan.apple.com/Videos/comp_DB_D002_C003_PSNK_v04_S... https://sylvan.apple.com/Videos/comp_DB_D001_C001_PSNK_v06_SDR_PS_20180824_SDR_2K_AVC.mov https://sylvan.apple.com/Videos/comp_DB_D001_C001_PSNK_v06_S... https://sylvan.apple.com/Videos/comp_DB_D001_C005_COMP_PSNK_v12_SDR_PS_20180912_SDR_2K_AVC.mov https://sylvan.apple.com/Videos/comp_DB_D001_C005_COMP_PSNK_... Looks like they're hosted on a domain with invalid certificate, so your browser might take a bit of convincing to load them.
mostlysimilar 3y ago
They're beautiful, but a small tangent... the latest macOS has a bug that repeatedly reverts the wallpaper to the default whenever I unplug/plug my external monitor and it's driving me crazy.
- pixelHD 3y ago
  Happens to me too. I use a display link'd dell dock from work, with 3 monitors. Every few times i plug it in, the wall papers revert, and the wallpapervideoextension process starts soaking up ram and cpu cycles (I dont use video wallpapers at all, just static images from my folder as wallpapers everywhere). I've made it a habit to check the activity manager everyday after I plug in the mac, and kill that process if its taking up too much resources.
- jwells89 3y ago
  I think what’s actually happening here is that spaces have separate desktop picture settings between displays. I noticed this a few days ago when moving a space from one monitor to the other and seeing its desktop picture change. Moving the space back to the original monitor restored the desktop picture. Not sure why it’s this way, kind of an odd choice.
  - mostlysimilar 3y ago
    I think it's a deeper issue than that. I shouldn't have to set the wallpaper back both when I plug in and when I unplug.
- cwizou 3y ago
  Sonoma did change the way wallpaper (and screensavers) get integrated (preferences have moved in an unusual place/preferences format too) which may be the root cause of this (although I admit I never hit that precise bug). Are you using classic images or some of the built in videos ?
  - mostlysimilar 3y ago
    It always defaults back to one of the new animated ones, and I always manually set it back to the solid black color option.
Williams77 3y ago
[dead]
Bondi_Blue 3y ago
A few photographers recreated some of them: https://petapixel.com/2019/09/16/this-photographer-trio-recreated-all-of-apples-default-wallpapers-in-one-go/ https://petapixel.com/2019/09/16/this-photographer-trio-recr... They also created one for Monterey since it didn’t ship with exclusive landscape photography: https://www.techradar.com/news/photographers-make-their-own-macos-monterey-landscape-wallpapers https://www.techradar.com/news/photographers-make-their-own-...
Theodores 3y ago
Even if you never use Apple Veblen Goods and have no idea how to use the funny keyboard, mouse and interface that defines Mac OSX, these desktop wallpapers are very familiar. This is remarkable because Apple is supposed to be about individuality. Changing the wallpaper could be two clicks away yet most Apple users stay with the stock wallpaper. I think they are focused on work rather than tinkering, with everyone happy with the stock wallpaper. Meanwhile, on Ubuntu, the first thing I change is the wallpaper. It goes. But then I have full screen apps and never see the wallpaper ever again. Personally I want the desktop wallpaper to be a black and white terminal window with it showing console messages from syslog, representing the guts of the machine.
- deleted 3y ago
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- deleted 3y ago
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bredren 3y ago
Tangentially related, my pal had a photo similar to the Andromeda in macOS 10.7 Lion licensed via 500px->Getty Images and it was used on Colbert last night: https://i.imgur.com/wtnLpt8.jpeg https://i.imgur.com/wtnLpt8.jpeg
zamadatix 3y ago
These seem to be upscaled, does anyone know where to find a collection of the original image files (not scaled or recompressed)?
Thrymr 3y ago
Beyond the defaults, there were 7 different wallpapers available in 10.15 (Catalina): https://9to5mac.com/2019/09/29/macos-catalina-wallpapers/ https://9to5mac.com/2019/09/29/macos-catalina-wallpapers/
Ezhik 3y ago
I miss pre-Yosemite vibes and Aqua's skeuomorphic iteration. An elegant design language, for a more civilized age.
avereveard 3y ago
The copyright claim from apple will be legendary
- david422 3y ago
  I'm curious about this. Somebody pulls a bunch of images from Apple and hosts them on their site. Surely this runs afoul of something. I have a small site that allows some user uploaded content, and I get random notices that threaten legal action unless I buy license (for users that have uploaded content from wherever). My response is just to take them down.
sebastianconcpt 3y ago
You can't unsee it once seen: The last three releases as somehow vaginal canals.
justinzollars 3y ago
The California thing is kinda played. We need a new theme.
BizarreByte 3y ago
10.3 and 10.4 were the best ones and I still use one of those two to this day.
- felixding 3y ago
  Same!
mvexel 3y ago
There is a link at the top for pre-OSX wallpapers. There was one in MacOS 7 or 8 that was called "platte pinda's" in Dutch meaning "flat(tened) peanuts)". That name mystified me at the time. Googling it now, there's only one result for that phrase, completely unrelated. Am I making this up?
hansonpeter 3y ago
[dead]
vanilla_nut 3y ago
I wish more OSes would work with independent photographers to compile a set of beautiful wallpapers. It used to feel easy to find good wallpaper online, but nowadays, especially with macOS's hiDPI settings and my personal desire for #000 true black wallpapers to hide notches and camera holes, it can feel very difficult. Search engines don't yield good results for 4k or 5k images, and a lot of the hi-res wallpaper subreddits have disappeared since their API debacle. I source solid wallpapers from a couple of OSes for use in macOS: * https://stories.gregannandale.com/raspberry-pi-desktop-images https://stories.gregannandale.com/raspberry-pi-desktop-image... * Ubuntu has some default hits (and misses): https://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/every-ubuntu-default-wallpaper https://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/every-ubuntu-default-wallpaper * Ubuntu hosts a wallpaper competition (most years) for photographers all over the world: https://ubuntu.com/blog/winners-of-the-21-10-wallpaper-competition https://ubuntu.com/blog/winners-of-the-21-10-wallpaper-compe... * and here's a somewhat-outdated repo of wallpapers from a bunch of Linux distros: https://github.com/LinuxKits/Distro-wallpapers https://github.com/LinuxKits/Distro-wallpapers -- I'm especially fond of the Elementary OS images.
- dylan604 3y ago
  > I wish more OSes would work with independent photographers to compile a set of beautiful wallpapers. Why though? Why should someone be subjected to all of this extra cruft when you can just find the images from websites? As long as Google image search exists, people will find whatever images they want to use. If you're thinking an OS vendor would do proper licensing, that's a nice thought, but the vast majority of people using custom wallpapers don't care about it.
  - philposting 3y ago
    It's nice to use software, or anything really, where effort has been made to make it beautiful as well as functional. Also it's good to support and highlight good photography.
- Kwpolska 3y ago
  If you need to hide the dumb notch, I’d take my nice wallpaper, scale it down to the exact resolution, and just add a black bar as high as the menu bar is. This can be a bit ugly when the wallpaper appears without the menu bar, but it’s a fine solution nonetheless. (I had to do this in Big Sur, since the OS thought my wallpaper works best with a black text on the menu bar, which wasn’t actually too readable.)
rickreynoldssf 3y ago
I still use a background tile from MacOS 7.5. I guess that makes me reallly old and a bit spectrumy
binarymax 3y ago
The Catalina wallpaper threw me off guard when I first saw it. It looks exactly like a Bryce landscape I made in the late 90s. I spent some time trying to find it in my data archives but alas it is likely lost.
davidhariri 3y ago
Louie Mantia has colored, re-rendered versions of the 10.0 Cheetah Wallpaper that include Dark Mode versions. They are great: https://lmnt.me/blog/wallpapers/ https://lmnt.me/blog/wallpapers/
hcarvalhoalves 3y ago
These were the best ones IMO: https://wallpapertag.com/img/eyJpdiI6ImlFY2hqYStNSno4Z0dBcGYzd1JJNGc9PSIsInZhbHVlIjoiWmF4bjVBTXY1ZWVxaEllZFNOcFJGUT09IiwibWFjIjoiMmQ0MjMzOTMxOTkyOTQ4YmQzNDFjZGNjMzJjNGQyOGUwY2E3ZTE3ZDk5NzY5M2JhNzQxNGFmYjFiYzU0YjZlNSJ9 https://wallpapertag.com/img/eyJpdiI6ImlFY2hqYStNSno4Z0dBcGY... https://wallpapertag.com/img/eyJpdiI6IlZ2N1R4bVpXYm9DVTRPS3loR3A5akE9PSIsInZhbHVlIjoiaXU0MzdPa0RNOEkxWEdHcWpnYmFxdz09IiwibWFjIjoiY2MzZDM3NDMxOTEyYTc3MjQ3ODZlNzA1MmIwMWRiYzAzMGVlNDM2MDZhZjY1NmQzOGVkOWZjMTc0NDA5MWVkMyJ9 https://wallpapertag.com/img/eyJpdiI6IlZ2N1R4bVpXYm9DVTRPS3l...
- post_break 3y ago
  The fish one on my 2006 white plastic macbook takes me back.
  - alltrue1 3y ago
    Still have mine and that is definitely my wallpaper
  - yreg 3y ago
    It was also used in many marketing materials for the original iPhone. (Although the default wallpaper was the Earth one, I believe.)
    - xattt 3y ago
      9:42
      - yreg 3y ago
        Which was I believe the local time when the iPhone was first shown on stage. Although some materials used also 9:41.
  - data-ottawa 3y ago
    For me it's the grass one, and creating Adium themes to complement it!
danans 3y ago
Tangentially, I find wallpaper to be fascinating as it's one of the few aspects of desktop UX that is basically still 100% open to self-expression. For functional reasons, every other desktop UI surface has converged with only a few minor variations. But the static desktop OS background - perhaps because it has no inherent functional purpose and remains covered most of the time - remains as a canvas.
- nullhole 3y ago
  > the static desktop OS background Eons ago, there was a (paid) 3rd-party program for MacOS Classic that would give you a slideshow desktop background. The images were of the Golden Gate bridge, and were a timelapse over the course of a day. The changes were (afair) synced to your local solar time, so 'sunset' in the desktop background would line up with your local sunset. I'd have to search to find the name of the program, but I kind of wish I had it back.
  - dylan604 3y ago
    In classic Apple fashion, that's built in to the OS now.
  - lgl 3y ago
    Well, it's not for MacOS, but software to run animated wallpapers exist for Windows. One example is the very popular WallpaperEngine [0]. Another cool one (and open source) is Lively Wallpaper [1]. Selfless plug: I've also developed and released LumoTray [2] which is a wallpaper/screensaver manager for windows with some other extra features but without any animated wallpapers except slideshows as I still find it a bit of a resource waste for something that I rarely see. [0] https://www.wallpaperengine.io https://www.wallpaperengine.io [1] https://www.rocksdanister.com/lively/ https://www.rocksdanister.com/lively/ [2] https://lumotray.com/ https://lumotray.com/
    - p_l 3y ago
      I think ActiveDesktop still works, too
JoshGlazebrook 3y ago
Can we do this with iOS wallpapers too? I still have fond memories of those fish from the very first phone. They brought it back in iOS 16 thankfully.
nrabulinski 3y ago
To me leopard is the most iconic. In my head it’s the wallpaper of modern macOS. I still remember back in the day that was the first thing I downloaded when I tried to make my Vista PC look at least a little bit like a Mac :-)
- kccqzy 3y ago
  To me the default wallpaper on Tiger is the most iconic. I'm probably biased because Tiger is the first version I used (on a borrowed computer!).
- nlunbeck 3y ago
  Agreed, it felt like such a major leap in modernity from the Aqua wallpapers. I still think of it as the definitive 2000s Mac OS X wallpaper, it really was everywhere in no way any of their wallpapers have been since. It was like the Bliss counterpart to Mac OS X
- willio58 3y ago
  Same, leopard was the version that just came out when I bought my first white Macbook with money I saved as a kid shoveling driveways for an entire winter (and admittedly got paid too much by neighbors to do so). I remember being in awe as I set up that computer and that was the first computer I started writing some HTML on. All these years and 2 Macbooks later my career is in web dev and I _still_ love MacOS.
dbtc 3y ago
A change from abstract to space after 2005. A change from space to earth after 2012. And back to abstract in 2021.
Kehvarl 3y ago
My last mac was a Powerbook g4 12 inch with OS 10.3 Panther, but for some reason I clearly recall the 10.0 wallpaper being the one it came with and the one I stared at for years. The proper 10.3 wallpaper doesn't look familiar at all.
concinds 3y ago
Just got a MacBook Air from the store, latest Sonoma 14.3.1, and the default wallpaper was the photorealistic one (“Sonoma Horizon”), not the abstract one.
BjoernKW 3y ago
The Catalina one always used to remind me of a certain island somewhere deep in the Caribbean. Seems like I'm not the only one: https://www.reddit.com/r/MonkeyIsland/comments/dgwm03/the_new_macos_catalina_wallpaper_reminded_me_of/ https://www.reddit.com/r/MonkeyIsland/comments/dgwm03/the_ne...
rezmason 3y ago
Don't forget the OS 9 wallpapers: https://512pixels.net/projects/mac-os-9-5k-wallpapers https://512pixels.net/projects/mac-os-9-5k-wallpapers My favorites among these are the gradient-rich desktops that dropped in Mac OS 8.5 back in '98, like those UFO ones. That's when the OS gained support for icons with 24-bit color and 8-bit masks, which are the direct ancestors to today's 1024x1024 32-bit app icons. Perhaps to commemorate this full leveling up of the classic Mac desktop to millions of colors, Apple hired a small team of designers to custom make the UFO, Capsule and Tub desktop pictures. Screen sized gradients between two relatively close colors almost always land in the sandbar of banding or dithering in order to quantize all those subtle variations to the limited color depth. But these desktops do a beautiful job at avoiding that. I'm not sure, but I think they achieved it by color grading a zero-to-255 3D render with a high bits/channel ratio in Photoshop, tuning the grade and quantizing to 8 bits per pixel from time to time as a sort of gamut warning. Any problematic areas could then be "buffed out" with careful blend mode shenanigans on the boundaries.
- djhn 3y ago
  Wow, I always thought there was something strange about those gradients, and you’re right! The distinct lack of banding despite the limited variation in hue!
- bandergirl 3y ago
  Speaking as an outsider that has no emotional attachment to those wallpapers: wow, they’re really awful (except maybe the first one) I mean one of them is bright green and red? The holy grail of what not to set as a background, as well as one of the most awful color combinations (unless it’s Christmas)
  - rezmason 3y ago
    Many are undeniably garish by today's standards, on today's devices, and although they were maybe more refreshing to our palettes at the time and less intense in the default monitor color spaces back then, I must confess, I distinctly remember vetoing several of these desktop pictures as a late 90s Mac user, including the ones you pointed out. And the era of subtler, muted colors and tones showed up pretty quickly after these for valid reasons. I still like the UFO ones a whole lot though ^_^
geon 3y ago
I kind of miss the original aqua white striped theme: https://miro.medium.com/v2/resize:fit:720/format:webp/1*XwujEtQhp4dl5j6Jd66DPA.png https://miro.medium.com/v2/resize:fit:720/format:webp/1*Xwuj...
Yhippa 3y ago
I can remember eras of my life gone by with these wallpapers.
divbzero 3y ago
This is the analogous website with every Apple TV aerial screensaver: https://bzamayo.com/watch-all-the-apple-tv-aerial-video-screensavers https://bzamayo.com/watch-all-the-apple-tv-aerial-video-scre...
Sunspark 3y ago
Not a critique of MacOS here, but generally stock OS bundled wallpapers for any device are always so generic. Probably a lot of effort goes into picking ones that offends the least amount of people, hence the trend in recent years of just colours and shapes. Only the colour-blind would be offended by those.
uticus 3y ago
What was the one with rotating windmill-like propeller geometric shapes? Or maybe that is a screensaver I'm thinking of...
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
lizardking 3y ago
Strong nostalgia for this one https://512pixels.net/downloads/macos-wallpapers-thumbs/10-2--thumb.png https://512pixels.net/downloads/macos-wallpapers-thumbs/10-2... Takes me back to my dorm room on my 13-inch iBook.
Lammy 3y ago
See also, for the other (non-default) Mac OS X walls: https://macintoshgarden.org/apps/macos-desktop-pictures https://macintoshgarden.org/apps/macos-desktop-pictures
freitzkriesler2 3y ago
I forgot how much I missed those blue cones. This and bliss put me in a wicked nostalgic mood.
marsissippi 3y ago
So cool! I made this thing that breaks down each image by fraction of each color used https://www.julyp.com/shared/018dae67-9ec0-7191-bd9f-7fe9c858435b https://www.julyp.com/shared/018dae67-9ec0-7191-bd9f-7fe9c85... Looking at it like a source of color palettes, I really like Venture more...
jsz0 3y ago
I'm not a big fan of any of the modern macOS or iOS wallpapers. They're so busy it's hard to even read text labels on top of them. My goto background for many years was Leopard Server but it was eventually replaced by the Linen tile texture that IIRC wasn't a default wallpaper choice but could be copied out of the system folder.
chris_wot 3y ago
The default wallpaper for Sonoma for me has been an interactive image of what looks like wine country in France?
- stbtrax 3y ago
  Sonoma is wine country in Northern California
  - chris_wot 3y ago
    It's a gorgeous photo.
Erazal 3y ago
I'm obsessed with having a clean desktop, and beautiful wallpapers. Until recently, I used a neat little app for MacOS called Artdiario [1] that would update my wallpaper every day with a beautiful piece of art and I LOVED it. "Used to" because it looks it's not updated anymore since around 2 months :( Was thinking of re-creating the same "open-source" version of it, that would pick and show art from museums around the world every day [2]. Would some of you be interested? And if by chance you're reading me Jimmy - I love the app and would be happy to help maintain / curate it! [1] https://www.artdiario.com/ https://www.artdiario.com/ [2] a ton of museums provide free access to their art, such as the National Gallery of Art - https://www.nga.gov/open-access-images.html https://www.nga.gov/open-access-images.html
- hisnameisjimmy 3y ago
  Yo I would love the help to maintain/curate. A combination of the holidays and a really aggressive start to the new year at work made me fall off the update wagon. Email me and we can setup a time to chat. Edit: This was really nice to see/hear. Thank you for appreciating this publicly!
  - Erazal 3y ago
    I've sent out an e-mail :) And yes I LOVE it! I've installed on at least ~4 different machines of friends as well!
    - Erazal 3y ago
      email sent from erazal (backwards).rossillon[at].gmail.com
      - philposting 3y ago
        A lovely app -- downloaded!
watersb 3y ago
You can run screen savers on your Mac desktop (wallpaper), buy running the "ScreenSaverEngine" with the "-background" option from the command line. The executable is inside the screen saver application package. cd /System/Library/CoreServices/ScreenSaverEngine.app/Contents/MacOS ./ScreenSaverEngine -background (Earlier versions of macOS have the app under /System/Library/Frameworks/ScreenSaver.framework/Resources )
- xyzwave 3y ago
  Independent of location on disk: `open -b com.apple.ScreenSaver.Engine`
mattl 3y ago
Meanwhile I have the same generic blue background from Rhapsody still on all my devices.
- runlevel1 3y ago
  As in Mac OS X before it was Mac OS X? That Rhapsody?
  - mattl 3y ago
    Yep. It was released as Mac OS X Server 1.0 briefly.
imwillofficial 3y ago
Things brings back so many great memories. I got into computing just as OS X launched. I installed every version with great anticipation. A ritual with my Mac geek friends every year. I feel we have lost that excitement in todays world.
scq 3y ago
It's not mentioned on the page, but at least 10.0 to 10.8 are AI upscaled -- you can tell from the artifacts when looking at the image closely. I don't think it's reasonable to call this an "archive", as the link does, when the images have undisclosed changes to them and are clearly not the original files :/
- Retr0id 3y ago
  Thank you for saying it, undisclosed "enhancements" like this just remind me of the botched Ecce Homo painting restoration. A request to the world: If you're going to post an "enhanced" version of something, at least share the original too.
- judge2020 3y ago
  Hmm, this forum post[0] is from 2012 and includes a high res photo from the OS, but it seems nearly visually identical to the photo on 512pixels.net. I don't see almost any artifacts that give me the impression of AI upscaling. 0: https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/10-8-new-wallpaper-background.1324903/post-14331598 https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/10-8-new-wallpaper-back...
  - scq 3y ago
    That 10.8 wallpaper you linked looks original. 3200 x 2000 appears to be the original resolution for Lion and Mountain Lion (also note how the version on this site is cropped). 10.8 is less obvious so hard to say with 100% certainty, but if you look at, say 10.6 it's super obvious. Here's the original wallpaper shipped by Apple: https://cdn.osxdaily.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/08/defaultdesktop.jpg https://cdn.osxdaily.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/08/defaultd... Here's the one from this site: https://512pixels.net/downloads/macos-wallpapers-6k/10-6-6k.jpg https://512pixels.net/downloads/macos-wallpapers-6k/10-6-6k.... If you look at the bright star at the top left, in the original it has a clean lens flare. In the version from this site, the diagonal flare has a zebra stripe pattern. This is characteristic of AI upscaling of a very thin diagonal line.
dredmorbius 3y ago
I'd stumbled across this site just recently after realising that the MacOS Monterey upgrade apparently deletes the Yosemite wallpapers. Which is quite unfortunate.
zgs 3y ago
I was far more used to the MacsBug screen of despair.
chungy 3y ago
Those 10.0-10.4 wallpapers remind me a lot of wallpapers I made with Fyre back when I ran Windows 95 as a primary.
reify 3y ago
Running out of ideas to promote the website More boring and uninteresting Apple boringness What is so interesting about wallpapers? Nothing! The typical self promotion through HN. Become a member of 512 Pixels. Support projects like these, receive exclusive content in the monthly newsletter and enjoy advanced screenings of my YouTube videos. Fraidy not old boy A fly in the ointment
globular-toast 3y ago
I remember when having a wallpaper was a big deal. I have a few screenshots of my desktops over the years and they do bring back memories. But I've used a tiling window manager for the past 5 years or so and there's no point having a wallpaper. I consider it a waste of screen space now.
interludead 3y ago
10.4 Tiger - my favorite
pompino 3y ago
The 10.4 wallpaper brings back some nostalgia for me. It was the first time I could afford to buy a new laptop and I splurged on the 06 core duo macbook pro.
mark_l_watson 3y ago
That is a cool trip down memory lane. Not only macOS, but also when updating Linux distributions it is always fun to see new eye candy on the desktop. Apple has excellent photos and other wallpapers, I would be (slightly) curious what percentage of people just stick with the default? Off topic, but I like to use my own pictures of places around the world where my wife and I have travelled for desktops. I also like to use high resolution pictures I have taken of favorite art work I have purchased.

538 points by jorgesborges 3y ago

Everything up through 10.6 makes me feel indescribably warm and fuzzy. I don't like Steve Jobs very much as a person, and I don't quite buy the myth that he was as much of a unique genius as some people believe, but...is it a coincidence that 10.7 marked the end of the (second) Jobs-era at Apple? ...or maybe it's just nostalgia.

jwells89 3y ago
> Everything up through 10.6 makes me feel indescribably warm and fuzzy. 10.2/10.3/10.4 are the ones that do it for me. Spent way too much time on my Macs through those years, through which I frequently used the default desktop pictures because they were so smooth and nice to look at, and each OS X release was nicer to use than the last which made for positive associations with each. 10.5/10.6 were good too, but I found the default desktops on those too busy and usually used something else. I also typically used custom themes by way of Shapeshifter[0] because I found the gray metal look of those releases too dark and modded my dock with themes found on MacThemes. As a result the default 10.5/10.6 desktops aren’t emotionally evocative for me. I do however miss the 10.5/10.6 implementation of virtual desktops, which gave you a 2D grid to place desktops on instead of just a line. [0]: https://apple.fandom.com/wiki/ShapeShifter https://apple.fandom.com/wiki/ShapeShifter

alltrue1 3y ago

Tiger is just so nostalgic

johnbehnke 3y ago

The macOS screenshot library from Stephen is also excellent: https://512pixels.net/projects/aqua-screenshot-library/ https://512pixels.net/projects/aqua-screenshot-library/

fumar 3y ago
Intense nostalgia. I remember my updating my MacBook from Tiger to Leopard and being inthralled with the new OS welcome video. It was a powerful feeling like a genuine leap was made after rebooting and new powers unlocked. 10.3 used Rokysopp's Eple, and I still love that song and album.
- xattt 3y ago
  The Welcome videos were technological showcases. Where else were you going to see 1080p videos in 2005-2008?
  - hulitu 3y ago
    IMAX ? /s
vvillena 3y ago
Looking back at the 10.4-10.7 era, I really miss those app icons, they were so easy to tell apart from each other just from shape. The rest of the design language was also a marvel in usability, it was so clear what everything was and how to interact with it.

ruined 3y ago

(admirable) these images did incredible psychic damage to kde designers i used the catalina bg until late last year, when they started shipping the former appletv video backgrounds as the default, because it was just so good. seriously, after that on a 5k display, i thought i would never enjoy another desktop background

_benj 3y ago
> (admirable) these images did incredible psychic damage to kde designers made me chuckle :-) But for real, there is something about a good wallpaper, at least for me, the wallpaper being the first thing I set on a new linux install. I fully believe that a solid default wallpaper can help with desktop manager adoption (i.e. kde, gnome, xfce4), at least for the bohemians types like me!
- dylan604 3y ago
  > the wallpaper being the first thing I set on a new linux install For me, that would be the last time I ever see it. I have so many windows open providing me quick access to whatever I need without flipping spaces or whatever, that I just never see the desktop. It's just one of those things that over time of using computers, I just don't care about it any more. I don't begrudge anyone that does, but it is just one of those funny things one realizes how time changes one's outlook
- Affric 3y ago
  Do you have a recommendation for a good place to source wallpapers? With the photography it’s one of the things Apple get so right about UX.
  - SSLy 3y ago
    unsplash perhaps?
  - _thisdot 3y ago
    Always loved the default wallpapers on Ubuntu too. I still have some old Ubuntu default wallpapers on my Mac!

cmiller1 3y ago

Here's an album containing all of the built in wallpapers in every version including for the classic Mac OS https://photos.google.com/share/AF1QipNNQyeVrqxBdNmBkq9ILswizuj-RYJFNt5GlxJZ90Y6hx0okrVSLKSnmFFbX7j5Mg?key=RV8tSXVJVGdfS1RIQUI0Q3RZZVhlTmw0WmhFZ2V3 https://photos.google.com/share/AF1QipNNQyeVrqxBdNmBkq9ILswi...

yrro 3y ago

Here are some ones from MacOS 7: https://osxdaily.com/2018/01/01/classic-mac-os-tiling-wallpapers/ https://osxdaily.com/2018/01/01/classic-mac-os-tiling-wallpa...

Waterluvian 3y ago
Repeating bears in overalls is all I can see when I think System 7 desktop pattern.
- jwells89 3y ago
  For me it’s the grass, stones, and star patterns. They look way too busy on modern displays but at 640x480 or 800x600 they weren’t too bad.
mattl 3y ago
System 7... it didn't become Mac OS until 7.6 or something, and then Mac OS 8 came out very soon after that.
- MenhirMike 3y ago
  Also conveniently made sure that clone manufacturers (who only had a license for System 7) didn't have a modern Mac OS anymore.
  - mattl 3y ago
    Right except that one clone maker they bought IIRC?
    - MenhirMike 3y ago
      Yeah, they bought out Power Computing.
jandrese 3y ago
Even more fun was the fact the wallpaper widget had a little pixel editor built in that let you make your own tiling pattern. I seem to recall that it updated the desktop in realtime as you changed the pixels so you always knew exactly what your pattern looked like tiled.

ChrisMarshallNY 3y ago

The one that mystifies me, is why Apple pulled their original Dubai At Night screensaver[0]. [0] https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=766810966790684 https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=766810966790684 (This seems to be the only place to find it online).

mig39 3y ago
I'd take a guess and say that Dubai is one of those places that's a bit paranoid of aerial imagery? Was this filmed with a drone or helicopter? Is it possible the right "permits" weren't obtained before flying over the rush hour traffic?
- ChrisMarshallNY 3y ago
  I have no idea. It’s an awesome video. I have a couple of friends that used to work for Apple, and neither one has any idea why.
  - 10729287 3y ago
    Could something be copyrighted here ? Eiffel Tower isn't, but lights are : https://www.toureiffel.paris/en/business/use-image-of-eiffel-tower https://www.toureiffel.paris/en/business/use-image-of-eiffel...
- madeofpalk 3y ago
  There's still a daytime top-down Dubai screensaver video on Apple TV I believe.
  - randgoog 3y ago
    My Apple TV shows downtown LA.
    - madeofpalk 3y ago
      Looks like there's five active Dubai screensavers. The one parent was talking about is missing. https://bzamayo.com/watch-all-the-apple-tv-aerial-video-screensavers#b07cfe1d892930fcb8577321c29e5860 https://bzamayo.com/watch-all-the-apple-tv-aerial-video-scre... also https://aerial-videos.netlify.app/ https://aerial-videos.netlify.app/ https://sylvan.apple.com/Videos/comp_DB_D011_C010_PSNK_DENOISE_v19_SDR_PS_20180914_SDR_2K_AVC.mov https://sylvan.apple.com/Videos/comp_DB_D011_C010_PSNK_DENOI... https://sylvan.apple.com/Videos/comp_DB_D008_C010_PSNK_v21_SDR_PS_20180914_F0F16157_SDR_2K_AVC.mov https://sylvan.apple.com/Videos/comp_DB_D008_C010_PSNK_v21_S... https://sylvan.apple.com/Videos/comp_DB_D002_C003_PSNK_v04_SDR_PS_20180914_SDR_2K_AVC.mov https://sylvan.apple.com/Videos/comp_DB_D002_C003_PSNK_v04_S... https://sylvan.apple.com/Videos/comp_DB_D001_C001_PSNK_v06_SDR_PS_20180824_SDR_2K_AVC.mov https://sylvan.apple.com/Videos/comp_DB_D001_C001_PSNK_v06_S... https://sylvan.apple.com/Videos/comp_DB_D001_C005_COMP_PSNK_v12_SDR_PS_20180912_SDR_2K_AVC.mov https://sylvan.apple.com/Videos/comp_DB_D001_C005_COMP_PSNK_... Looks like they're hosted on a domain with invalid certificate, so your browser might take a bit of convincing to load them.

mostlysimilar 3y ago

They're beautiful, but a small tangent... the latest macOS has a bug that repeatedly reverts the wallpaper to the default whenever I unplug/plug my external monitor and it's driving me crazy.

pixelHD 3y ago
Happens to me too. I use a display link'd dell dock from work, with 3 monitors. Every few times i plug it in, the wall papers revert, and the wallpapervideoextension process starts soaking up ram and cpu cycles (I dont use video wallpapers at all, just static images from my folder as wallpapers everywhere). I've made it a habit to check the activity manager everyday after I plug in the mac, and kill that process if its taking up too much resources.
jwells89 3y ago
I think what’s actually happening here is that spaces have separate desktop picture settings between displays. I noticed this a few days ago when moving a space from one monitor to the other and seeing its desktop picture change. Moving the space back to the original monitor restored the desktop picture. Not sure why it’s this way, kind of an odd choice.
- mostlysimilar 3y ago
  I think it's a deeper issue than that. I shouldn't have to set the wallpaper back both when I plug in and when I unplug.
cwizou 3y ago
Sonoma did change the way wallpaper (and screensavers) get integrated (preferences have moved in an unusual place/preferences format too) which may be the root cause of this (although I admit I never hit that precise bug). Are you using classic images or some of the built in videos ?
- mostlysimilar 3y ago
  It always defaults back to one of the new animated ones, and I always manually set it back to the solid black color option.

Williams77 3y ago

[dead]

Bondi_Blue 3y ago

A few photographers recreated some of them: https://petapixel.com/2019/09/16/this-photographer-trio-recreated-all-of-apples-default-wallpapers-in-one-go/ https://petapixel.com/2019/09/16/this-photographer-trio-recr... They also created one for Monterey since it didn’t ship with exclusive landscape photography: https://www.techradar.com/news/photographers-make-their-own-macos-monterey-landscape-wallpapers https://www.techradar.com/news/photographers-make-their-own-...

Theodores 3y ago

Even if you never use Apple Veblen Goods and have no idea how to use the funny keyboard, mouse and interface that defines Mac OSX, these desktop wallpapers are very familiar. This is remarkable because Apple is supposed to be about individuality. Changing the wallpaper could be two clicks away yet most Apple users stay with the stock wallpaper. I think they are focused on work rather than tinkering, with everyone happy with the stock wallpaper. Meanwhile, on Ubuntu, the first thing I change is the wallpaper. It goes. But then I have full screen apps and never see the wallpaper ever again. Personally I want the desktop wallpaper to be a black and white terminal window with it showing console messages from syslog, representing the guts of the machine.

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bredren 3y ago

Tangentially related, my pal had a photo similar to the Andromeda in macOS 10.7 Lion licensed via 500px->Getty Images and it was used on Colbert last night: https://i.imgur.com/wtnLpt8.jpeg https://i.imgur.com/wtnLpt8.jpeg

zamadatix 3y ago

These seem to be upscaled, does anyone know where to find a collection of the original image files (not scaled or recompressed)?

Thrymr 3y ago

Beyond the defaults, there were 7 different wallpapers available in 10.15 (Catalina): https://9to5mac.com/2019/09/29/macos-catalina-wallpapers/ https://9to5mac.com/2019/09/29/macos-catalina-wallpapers/

Ezhik 3y ago

I miss pre-Yosemite vibes and Aqua's skeuomorphic iteration. An elegant design language, for a more civilized age.

avereveard 3y ago

The copyright claim from apple will be legendary

david422 3y ago
I'm curious about this. Somebody pulls a bunch of images from Apple and hosts them on their site. Surely this runs afoul of something. I have a small site that allows some user uploaded content, and I get random notices that threaten legal action unless I buy license (for users that have uploaded content from wherever). My response is just to take them down.

sebastianconcpt 3y ago

You can't unsee it once seen: The last three releases as somehow vaginal canals.

justinzollars 3y ago

The California thing is kinda played. We need a new theme.

BizarreByte 3y ago

10.3 and 10.4 were the best ones and I still use one of those two to this day.

felixding 3y ago
Same!

mvexel 3y ago

There is a link at the top for pre-OSX wallpapers. There was one in MacOS 7 or 8 that was called "platte pinda's" in Dutch meaning "flat(tened) peanuts)". That name mystified me at the time. Googling it now, there's only one result for that phrase, completely unrelated. Am I making this up?

hansonpeter 3y ago

[dead]

vanilla_nut 3y ago

I wish more OSes would work with independent photographers to compile a set of beautiful wallpapers. It used to feel easy to find good wallpaper online, but nowadays, especially with macOS's hiDPI settings and my personal desire for #000 true black wallpapers to hide notches and camera holes, it can feel very difficult. Search engines don't yield good results for 4k or 5k images, and a lot of the hi-res wallpaper subreddits have disappeared since their API debacle. I source solid wallpapers from a couple of OSes for use in macOS: * https://stories.gregannandale.com/raspberry-pi-desktop-images https://stories.gregannandale.com/raspberry-pi-desktop-image... * Ubuntu has some default hits (and misses): https://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/every-ubuntu-default-wallpaper https://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/every-ubuntu-default-wallpaper * Ubuntu hosts a wallpaper competition (most years) for photographers all over the world: https://ubuntu.com/blog/winners-of-the-21-10-wallpaper-competition https://ubuntu.com/blog/winners-of-the-21-10-wallpaper-compe... * and here's a somewhat-outdated repo of wallpapers from a bunch of Linux distros: https://github.com/LinuxKits/Distro-wallpapers https://github.com/LinuxKits/Distro-wallpapers -- I'm especially fond of the Elementary OS images.

dylan604 3y ago
> I wish more OSes would work with independent photographers to compile a set of beautiful wallpapers. Why though? Why should someone be subjected to all of this extra cruft when you can just find the images from websites? As long as Google image search exists, people will find whatever images they want to use. If you're thinking an OS vendor would do proper licensing, that's a nice thought, but the vast majority of people using custom wallpapers don't care about it.
- philposting 3y ago
  It's nice to use software, or anything really, where effort has been made to make it beautiful as well as functional. Also it's good to support and highlight good photography.
Kwpolska 3y ago
If you need to hide the dumb notch, I’d take my nice wallpaper, scale it down to the exact resolution, and just add a black bar as high as the menu bar is. This can be a bit ugly when the wallpaper appears without the menu bar, but it’s a fine solution nonetheless. (I had to do this in Big Sur, since the OS thought my wallpaper works best with a black text on the menu bar, which wasn’t actually too readable.)

rickreynoldssf 3y ago

I still use a background tile from MacOS 7.5. I guess that makes me reallly old and a bit spectrumy

binarymax 3y ago

The Catalina wallpaper threw me off guard when I first saw it. It looks exactly like a Bryce landscape I made in the late 90s. I spent some time trying to find it in my data archives but alas it is likely lost.

davidhariri 3y ago

Louie Mantia has colored, re-rendered versions of the 10.0 Cheetah Wallpaper that include Dark Mode versions. They are great: https://lmnt.me/blog/wallpapers/ https://lmnt.me/blog/wallpapers/

hcarvalhoalves 3y ago

These were the best ones IMO: https://wallpapertag.com/img/eyJpdiI6ImlFY2hqYStNSno4Z0dBcGYzd1JJNGc9PSIsInZhbHVlIjoiWmF4bjVBTXY1ZWVxaEllZFNOcFJGUT09IiwibWFjIjoiMmQ0MjMzOTMxOTkyOTQ4YmQzNDFjZGNjMzJjNGQyOGUwY2E3ZTE3ZDk5NzY5M2JhNzQxNGFmYjFiYzU0YjZlNSJ9 https://wallpapertag.com/img/eyJpdiI6ImlFY2hqYStNSno4Z0dBcGY... https://wallpapertag.com/img/eyJpdiI6IlZ2N1R4bVpXYm9DVTRPS3loR3A5akE9PSIsInZhbHVlIjoiaXU0MzdPa0RNOEkxWEdHcWpnYmFxdz09IiwibWFjIjoiY2MzZDM3NDMxOTEyYTc3MjQ3ODZlNzA1MmIwMWRiYzAzMGVlNDM2MDZhZjY1NmQzOGVkOWZjMTc0NDA5MWVkMyJ9 https://wallpapertag.com/img/eyJpdiI6IlZ2N1R4bVpXYm9DVTRPS3l...

post_break 3y ago
The fish one on my 2006 white plastic macbook takes me back.
- alltrue1 3y ago
  Still have mine and that is definitely my wallpaper
- yreg 3y ago
  It was also used in many marketing materials for the original iPhone. (Although the default wallpaper was the Earth one, I believe.)
  - xattt 3y ago
    9:42
    - yreg 3y ago
      Which was I believe the local time when the iPhone was first shown on stage. Although some materials used also 9:41.
- data-ottawa 3y ago
  For me it's the grass one, and creating Adium themes to complement it!

danans 3y ago

Tangentially, I find wallpaper to be fascinating as it's one of the few aspects of desktop UX that is basically still 100% open to self-expression. For functional reasons, every other desktop UI surface has converged with only a few minor variations. But the static desktop OS background - perhaps because it has no inherent functional purpose and remains covered most of the time - remains as a canvas.

nullhole 3y ago
> the static desktop OS background Eons ago, there was a (paid) 3rd-party program for MacOS Classic that would give you a slideshow desktop background. The images were of the Golden Gate bridge, and were a timelapse over the course of a day. The changes were (afair) synced to your local solar time, so 'sunset' in the desktop background would line up with your local sunset. I'd have to search to find the name of the program, but I kind of wish I had it back.
- dylan604 3y ago
  In classic Apple fashion, that's built in to the OS now.
- lgl 3y ago
  Well, it's not for MacOS, but software to run animated wallpapers exist for Windows. One example is the very popular WallpaperEngine [0]. Another cool one (and open source) is Lively Wallpaper [1]. Selfless plug: I've also developed and released LumoTray [2] which is a wallpaper/screensaver manager for windows with some other extra features but without any animated wallpapers except slideshows as I still find it a bit of a resource waste for something that I rarely see. [0] https://www.wallpaperengine.io https://www.wallpaperengine.io [1] https://www.rocksdanister.com/lively/ https://www.rocksdanister.com/lively/ [2] https://lumotray.com/ https://lumotray.com/
  - p_l 3y ago
    I think ActiveDesktop still works, too

JoshGlazebrook 3y ago

Can we do this with iOS wallpapers too? I still have fond memories of those fish from the very first phone. They brought it back in iOS 16 thankfully.

nrabulinski 3y ago

To me leopard is the most iconic. In my head it’s the wallpaper of modern macOS. I still remember back in the day that was the first thing I downloaded when I tried to make my Vista PC look at least a little bit like a Mac :-)

kccqzy 3y ago
To me the default wallpaper on Tiger is the most iconic. I'm probably biased because Tiger is the first version I used (on a borrowed computer!).
nlunbeck 3y ago
Agreed, it felt like such a major leap in modernity from the Aqua wallpapers. I still think of it as the definitive 2000s Mac OS X wallpaper, it really was everywhere in no way any of their wallpapers have been since. It was like the Bliss counterpart to Mac OS X
willio58 3y ago
Same, leopard was the version that just came out when I bought my first white Macbook with money I saved as a kid shoveling driveways for an entire winter (and admittedly got paid too much by neighbors to do so). I remember being in awe as I set up that computer and that was the first computer I started writing some HTML on. All these years and 2 Macbooks later my career is in web dev and I _still_ love MacOS.

dbtc 3y ago

A change from abstract to space after 2005. A change from space to earth after 2012. And back to abstract in 2021.

Kehvarl 3y ago

My last mac was a Powerbook g4 12 inch with OS 10.3 Panther, but for some reason I clearly recall the 10.0 wallpaper being the one it came with and the one I stared at for years. The proper 10.3 wallpaper doesn't look familiar at all.

concinds 3y ago

Just got a MacBook Air from the store, latest Sonoma 14.3.1, and the default wallpaper was the photorealistic one (“Sonoma Horizon”), not the abstract one.

BjoernKW 3y ago

The Catalina one always used to remind me of a certain island somewhere deep in the Caribbean. Seems like I'm not the only one: https://www.reddit.com/r/MonkeyIsland/comments/dgwm03/the_new_macos_catalina_wallpaper_reminded_me_of/ https://www.reddit.com/r/MonkeyIsland/comments/dgwm03/the_ne...

rezmason 3y ago

Don't forget the OS 9 wallpapers: https://512pixels.net/projects/mac-os-9-5k-wallpapers https://512pixels.net/projects/mac-os-9-5k-wallpapers My favorites among these are the gradient-rich desktops that dropped in Mac OS 8.5 back in '98, like those UFO ones. That's when the OS gained support for icons with 24-bit color and 8-bit masks, which are the direct ancestors to today's 1024x1024 32-bit app icons. Perhaps to commemorate this full leveling up of the classic Mac desktop to millions of colors, Apple hired a small team of designers to custom make the UFO, Capsule and Tub desktop pictures. Screen sized gradients between two relatively close colors almost always land in the sandbar of banding or dithering in order to quantize all those subtle variations to the limited color depth. But these desktops do a beautiful job at avoiding that. I'm not sure, but I think they achieved it by color grading a zero-to-255 3D render with a high bits/channel ratio in Photoshop, tuning the grade and quantizing to 8 bits per pixel from time to time as a sort of gamut warning. Any problematic areas could then be "buffed out" with careful blend mode shenanigans on the boundaries.

djhn 3y ago
Wow, I always thought there was something strange about those gradients, and you’re right! The distinct lack of banding despite the limited variation in hue!
bandergirl 3y ago
Speaking as an outsider that has no emotional attachment to those wallpapers: wow, they’re really awful (except maybe the first one) I mean one of them is bright green and red? The holy grail of what not to set as a background, as well as one of the most awful color combinations (unless it’s Christmas)
- rezmason 3y ago
  Many are undeniably garish by today's standards, on today's devices, and although they were maybe more refreshing to our palettes at the time and less intense in the default monitor color spaces back then, I must confess, I distinctly remember vetoing several of these desktop pictures as a late 90s Mac user, including the ones you pointed out. And the era of subtler, muted colors and tones showed up pretty quickly after these for valid reasons. I still like the UFO ones a whole lot though ^_^

geon 3y ago

I kind of miss the original aqua white striped theme: https://miro.medium.com/v2/resize:fit:720/format:webp/1*XwujEtQhp4dl5j6Jd66DPA.png https://miro.medium.com/v2/resize:fit:720/format:webp/1*Xwuj...

Yhippa 3y ago

I can remember eras of my life gone by with these wallpapers.

divbzero 3y ago

This is the analogous website with every Apple TV aerial screensaver: https://bzamayo.com/watch-all-the-apple-tv-aerial-video-screensavers https://bzamayo.com/watch-all-the-apple-tv-aerial-video-scre...

Sunspark 3y ago

Not a critique of MacOS here, but generally stock OS bundled wallpapers for any device are always so generic. Probably a lot of effort goes into picking ones that offends the least amount of people, hence the trend in recent years of just colours and shapes. Only the colour-blind would be offended by those.

uticus 3y ago

What was the one with rotating windmill-like propeller geometric shapes? Or maybe that is a screensaver I'm thinking of...

deleted 3y ago
[deleted]

lizardking 3y ago

Strong nostalgia for this one https://512pixels.net/downloads/macos-wallpapers-thumbs/10-2--thumb.png https://512pixels.net/downloads/macos-wallpapers-thumbs/10-2... Takes me back to my dorm room on my 13-inch iBook.

Lammy 3y ago

See also, for the other (non-default) Mac OS X walls: https://macintoshgarden.org/apps/macos-desktop-pictures https://macintoshgarden.org/apps/macos-desktop-pictures

freitzkriesler2 3y ago

I forgot how much I missed those blue cones. This and bliss put me in a wicked nostalgic mood.

marsissippi 3y ago

So cool! I made this thing that breaks down each image by fraction of each color used https://www.julyp.com/shared/018dae67-9ec0-7191-bd9f-7fe9c858435b https://www.julyp.com/shared/018dae67-9ec0-7191-bd9f-7fe9c85... Looking at it like a source of color palettes, I really like Venture more...

jsz0 3y ago

I'm not a big fan of any of the modern macOS or iOS wallpapers. They're so busy it's hard to even read text labels on top of them. My goto background for many years was Leopard Server but it was eventually replaced by the Linen tile texture that IIRC wasn't a default wallpaper choice but could be copied out of the system folder.

chris_wot 3y ago

The default wallpaper for Sonoma for me has been an interactive image of what looks like wine country in France?

stbtrax 3y ago
Sonoma is wine country in Northern California
- chris_wot 3y ago
  It's a gorgeous photo.

Erazal 3y ago

I'm obsessed with having a clean desktop, and beautiful wallpapers. Until recently, I used a neat little app for MacOS called Artdiario [1] that would update my wallpaper every day with a beautiful piece of art and I LOVED it. "Used to" because it looks it's not updated anymore since around 2 months :( Was thinking of re-creating the same "open-source" version of it, that would pick and show art from museums around the world every day [2]. Would some of you be interested? And if by chance you're reading me Jimmy - I love the app and would be happy to help maintain / curate it! [1] https://www.artdiario.com/ https://www.artdiario.com/ [2] a ton of museums provide free access to their art, such as the National Gallery of Art - https://www.nga.gov/open-access-images.html https://www.nga.gov/open-access-images.html

hisnameisjimmy 3y ago
Yo I would love the help to maintain/curate. A combination of the holidays and a really aggressive start to the new year at work made me fall off the update wagon. Email me and we can setup a time to chat. Edit: This was really nice to see/hear. Thank you for appreciating this publicly!
- Erazal 3y ago
  I've sent out an e-mail :) And yes I LOVE it! I've installed on at least ~4 different machines of friends as well!
  - Erazal 3y ago
    email sent from erazal (backwards).rossillon[at].gmail.com
    - philposting 3y ago
      A lovely app -- downloaded!

watersb 3y ago

You can run screen savers on your Mac desktop (wallpaper), buy running the "ScreenSaverEngine" with the "-background" option from the command line. The executable is inside the screen saver application package. cd /System/Library/CoreServices/ScreenSaverEngine.app/Contents/MacOS ./ScreenSaverEngine -background (Earlier versions of macOS have the app under /System/Library/Frameworks/ScreenSaver.framework/Resources )

xyzwave 3y ago
Independent of location on disk: `open -b com.apple.ScreenSaver.Engine`

mattl 3y ago

Meanwhile I have the same generic blue background from Rhapsody still on all my devices.

runlevel1 3y ago
As in Mac OS X before it was Mac OS X? That Rhapsody?
- mattl 3y ago
  Yep. It was released as Mac OS X Server 1.0 briefly.

imwillofficial 3y ago

Things brings back so many great memories. I got into computing just as OS X launched. I installed every version with great anticipation. A ritual with my Mac geek friends every year. I feel we have lost that excitement in todays world.

scq 3y ago

It's not mentioned on the page, but at least 10.0 to 10.8 are AI upscaled -- you can tell from the artifacts when looking at the image closely. I don't think it's reasonable to call this an "archive", as the link does, when the images have undisclosed changes to them and are clearly not the original files :/

Retr0id 3y ago
Thank you for saying it, undisclosed "enhancements" like this just remind me of the botched Ecce Homo painting restoration. A request to the world: If you're going to post an "enhanced" version of something, at least share the original too.
judge2020 3y ago
Hmm, this forum post[0] is from 2012 and includes a high res photo from the OS, but it seems nearly visually identical to the photo on 512pixels.net. I don't see almost any artifacts that give me the impression of AI upscaling. 0: https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/10-8-new-wallpaper-background.1324903/post-14331598 https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/10-8-new-wallpaper-back...
- scq 3y ago
  That 10.8 wallpaper you linked looks original. 3200 x 2000 appears to be the original resolution for Lion and Mountain Lion (also note how the version on this site is cropped). 10.8 is less obvious so hard to say with 100% certainty, but if you look at, say 10.6 it's super obvious. Here's the original wallpaper shipped by Apple: https://cdn.osxdaily.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/08/defaultdesktop.jpg https://cdn.osxdaily.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/08/defaultd... Here's the one from this site: https://512pixels.net/downloads/macos-wallpapers-6k/10-6-6k.jpg https://512pixels.net/downloads/macos-wallpapers-6k/10-6-6k.... If you look at the bright star at the top left, in the original it has a clean lens flare. In the version from this site, the diagonal flare has a zebra stripe pattern. This is characteristic of AI upscaling of a very thin diagonal line.

dredmorbius 3y ago

I'd stumbled across this site just recently after realising that the MacOS Monterey upgrade apparently deletes the Yosemite wallpapers. Which is quite unfortunate.

zgs 3y ago

I was far more used to the MacsBug screen of despair.

chungy 3y ago

Those 10.0-10.4 wallpapers remind me a lot of wallpapers I made with Fyre back when I ran Windows 95 as a primary.

reify 3y ago

Running out of ideas to promote the website More boring and uninteresting Apple boringness What is so interesting about wallpapers? Nothing! The typical self promotion through HN. Become a member of 512 Pixels. Support projects like these, receive exclusive content in the monthly newsletter and enjoy advanced screenings of my YouTube videos. Fraidy not old boy A fly in the ointment

globular-toast 3y ago

I remember when having a wallpaper was a big deal. I have a few screenshots of my desktops over the years and they do bring back memories. But I've used a tiling window manager for the past 5 years or so and there's no point having a wallpaper. I consider it a waste of screen space now.

interludead 3y ago

10.4 Tiger - my favorite

pompino 3y ago

The 10.4 wallpaper brings back some nostalgia for me. It was the first time I could afford to buy a new laptop and I splurged on the 06 core duo macbook pro.

mark_l_watson 3y ago

That is a cool trip down memory lane. Not only macOS, but also when updating Linux distributions it is always fun to see new eye candy on the desktop. Apple has excellent photos and other wallpapers, I would be (slightly) curious what percentage of people just stick with the default? Off topic, but I like to use my own pictures of places around the world where my wife and I have travelled for desktops. I also like to use high resolution pictures I have taken of favorite art work I have purchased.