Personalizing your Mac's wallpaper, lock screen, and screen saver takes about a minute once you know where Apple moved the settings. This guide covers desktop wallpapers, dynamic wallpapers that shift with the time of day, the aerial screen savers that spill onto your desktop, and the separate lock screen image — for macOS Sequoia, Sonoma, and Ventura.
Change your desktop wallpaper
Open the Apple menu → System Settings → Wallpaper (on macOS Monterey and earlier it's System Preferences → Desktop & Screen Saver). At the top you'll see a large preview of the current wallpaper. Below it are Apple's built-in collections:
- Dynamic Wallpapers — shift in appearance as the day progresses, matching sunrise, midday, and night.
- Aerials — the same slow-motion drone footage used by Apple TV, which can double as a screen saver that continues onto your desktop.
- Landscapes, Cityscapes, Underwater, Earth — still and motion collections.
- Colors — solid backgrounds that are easy on battery and CPU.
To use your own photo, scroll to the Photos section or click Add Photo → Choose from Photos / Choose a Folder. Pick an image and it applies immediately.
Use a dynamic wallpaper
Dynamic wallpapers automatically transition between light and dark versions of the same scene based on your Mac's clock and location. In System Settings → Wallpaper, choose any image from the Dynamic Wallpapers row, then set the dropdown under the preview to Dynamic. If you'd rather lock it, choose Light (Still) or Dark (Still) instead. For this to track correctly, make sure System Settings → Privacy & Security → Location Services is on and that System Services → Setting Time Zone is allowed.
Set the lock screen
On modern macOS the login/lock screen mirrors your desktop wallpaper by default — there's no separate picker the way iPhone has. To change what you see when you lock the Mac (Control ⌘ Q or closing the lid), simply change the desktop wallpaper as above and it carries over. If you want a distinct, cleaner lock screen, pick a solid Color or a single Still image; motion and aerial wallpapers pause on the lock screen and show the last frame.
To adjust the lock behavior itself — how quickly the Mac requires a password after sleep — go to System Settings → Lock Screen. There you can set "Require password after screen saver begins or display is turned off," show or hide your fast-user-switching menu, and control message previews on the lock screen.
Choose a screen saver (and use it as wallpaper)
Open System Settings → Screen Saver. macOS Sonoma and later share the Aerial library with wallpaper, so you can enable the checkbox "Show as wallpaper" to have the screen saver dissolve seamlessly into your desktop when you wake the Mac. Below that, set System Settings → Lock Screen → Start Screen Saver when inactive to your preferred idle time (e.g., 5 or 10 minutes).
- Aerial screen savers are large downloads; the first time one plays, macOS streams it in the background, so give it a few minutes on Wi-Fi.
- Classic options like Drift, Flurry, and Word of the Day still live under the "Other" category.
- A blank Color screen saver uses the least power — useful on a laptop running on battery.
Wallpaper looks blurry or won't change?
A few quick fixes:
- Blurry image: use a photo at least as large as your display's native resolution (2560×1600 for a 13" Retina, 3456×2234 for a 16" MacBook Pro). Upscaled small images always soften.
- Wallpaper reverts on restart: this is usually a permissions glitch — move the image into your Pictures folder and re-select it rather than pointing at a Downloads file that later moves.
- Dynamic wallpaper stuck on one look: confirm Location Services is enabled, or switch the dropdown to Automatic so it follows your Appearance setting instead.
Older or slowing Mac?
Motion wallpapers and 4K aerial screen savers lean on the GPU and can make a 2015–2018 Intel Mac feel sluggish or run its fans. If your Mac struggles with them, a solid color background is the lightest choice — but it may also be a sign the machine is due for an upgrade. If you're weighing that, our Apple clearance lineup of certified-refurbished MacBooks and iMacs handles dynamic wallpapers and aerials effortlessly, at a fraction of new-Apple pricing. Every unit is tested, warrantied, and ships free.
Quick reference
- Desktop wallpaper: System Settings → Wallpaper
- Dynamic vs still: dropdown under the wallpaper preview
- Lock screen image: mirrors desktop wallpaper (pick a Still/Color for a clean look)
- Screen saver: System Settings → Screen Saver (enable "Show as wallpaper" for Aerials)
- Password-after-sleep timing: System Settings → Lock Screen