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Apple TV Just Got More Screen Savers, Here's How to Get Them on Your Mac

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With the release of tvOS 15.2 earlier this week, Apple added nine new high-resolution screen savers to Apple TV HD and Apple TV 4K, including three featuring Scotland's Isle of Skye and Loch Moidart, and six offering various views of Iceland's stunning landscapes.

scotland-aerial-screensaver-e1639571845470.jpg
Traveling along the coast of the Isle of Skye, Scotland​

Apple TV downloads new screen savers on a regular basis depending on your Apple TV settings (daily, weekly, or monthly via Settings -> General -> Screen Saver -> Download New Video), so you may not see them immediately. But when you do, and if you like them, you'll be happy to learn that you can get them on your Mac, too.

Created by developer John Coates and maintained by Guillaume Louel, Aerial is a free and open source app for macOS 10.12 and later (including Monterey and Apple silicon) that lets you view the same high-quality Apple TV screen savers on your Mac.

The app periodically scrapes the screen savers from Apple's servers and lets you choose your favorite videos so that they play more often. So while it's not possible to choose a specific screensaver on Apple TV once it's downloaded, you can on your Mac, thanks to Aerial.

aerial.jpg

In addition, Aerial has some additional options, including the ability to filter video themes, overlay weather data, and adapt the videos that are played to the time of day, plus it offers an additional library of over 100 different videos.

The easiest way to get it on your Mac is to download the Aerial Companion from Coates' GitHub page, drag the app to your Applications folder, launch it, and then follow the quick setup process.

aerial-app.jpg

You can choose whether updates should happen automatically in the background, or if you prefer to be notified. You can also pick whether you want an icon in the menu bar to notify you or not.

Aerial 2 also introduced Community Videos, including 20 screen savers donated at no charge by Joshua Michaels and Hal Bergman. And if you like the Aerial app, you can always buy the developers a coffee.

Article Link: Apple TV Just Got More Screen Savers, Here's How to Get Them on Your Mac
 
Article Link
https://www.macrumors.com/2021/12/15/apple-tv-screen-savers-on-your-mac/
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I use my own photos as a screensaver. Apple periodically pushes out updates that reset the apple tvs to use theirs. Unfortunate you can't turn them off permanently.
 
I’ve been using the Aerial screen saver for a few years now and it’s great! Really recommend it.


But keep in mind that the videos are in 4K resolution (you may set them at lower resolution though) and there is quite a number of those available. So the space used on your SSD may be rather huge (25GB on my drive, not every clip installed).
 
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Lloigorr said:
I’ve been using the Aerial screen saver for a few years now and it’s great! Really recommend it.


But keep in mind that the videos are in 4K resolution (you may set them at lower resolution though) and there is quite a number of those available. So the space used on your SSD may be rather huge (25GB on my drive, not every clip installed).
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Yea, the app is amazing but it devours the drive heh.
 
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This is great, thanks! I wondered how I could get the AppleTV screensavers. Just tried the App and it is very well done.
 
timmyh said:
The companion is really good for this. It has an option to limit the amount of storage space it uses to download videos, similar to that other great screensaver, Electric Sheep!
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Oh I know thanks, been using it since before Louel took over, he has done a fantastic job improving it. My issue is I cache all vids because 90% of them are fantastic, and I rather download once and be able to play them without an internet connection, so I guess drive space is a trade-off.
 
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dredlew said:
It’s a crying shame that this one guy can develop a vastly superior app than Apple can. Despite numerous feedback reports over the years, the AppleTV screensaver still sucks like there’s no tomorrow. I hate it!
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Yes, the Aerial screensaver could easily be great, but simple little measures are missing that make a big difference.

My Apple TV always repeats the most boring choices, and never shows the good ones. All it needs is a way for the user to select which ones they want, and to never repeat the same one immediately.
 
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Guillaume here, thanks for the writeup.

If I may add, for new users, to get the new videos you need to pick "beta" during install when prompted. If you didn't, in Aerial Companion (in your menu bar, launch it again if you don't see it) open the menu and pick "Desired Version" and "Beta", then you'll get the latest videos.

I'm hoping to release next full update in a couple of weeks and this will no longer be necessary.
 
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Moonjumper said:
Yes, the Aerial screensaver could easily be great, but simple little measures are missing that make a big difference.

My Apple TV always repeats the most boring choices, and never shows the good ones. All it needs is a way for the user to select which ones they want, and to never repeat the same one immediately.
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I guess the rejects that Apple hires for software development were too busy screwing up iPadOS 15 with stupid changes and crappy programming to get their hands on tvOS 15. On the ATV 4K 2017 you only get 5 or 6 that repeat, and as you said, they often pick the crappiest ones. If you have your ATV 4K set to SDR you get SDR screensavers, not the same ones as the nice HDR ones. Seems like they should just make them all HDR and if they are viewed in SDR then so be it, but that makes too much sense and would overload the tiny brains of any Apple developer! And Photos app on the ATV 4K 2017 only uses 8-bit color, so 10-bit images tend to have color bands. Geez, it is like Google infiltrated Apple with spies to intentionally sabotage their FW.
 
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Have they finally updated the flyovers of Downtown Los Angeles? They're still showing videos that show an unfinished Wilshire grand tower (completed in 2017) along with an LA live area missing about 15 towers.
 
Moonjumper said:
Yes, the Aerial screensaver could easily be great, but simple little measures are missing that make a big difference.

My Apple TV always repeats the most boring choices, and never shows the good ones. All it needs is a way for the user to select which ones they want, and to never repeat the same one immediately.
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Exactly! And by the time you finally got a bunch downloaded, a new tvOS update comes out which wipes all downloads clean and you wait forever again to build up the files. It’s so idiotic.
 
Awesome! So many of them are really amazing. Even looking down at LAX is stunning, the desert, oceans, and Saudi Arabia too.

EDIT: Aerial? I have my iMac screen just go to black. *shrug* Works for me
 
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I don't need to have an Apple TV to use this do I? Love those screensavers but use a Mac Mini as my media hub.
 
Moonjumper said:
Yes, the Aerial screensaver could easily be great, but simple little measures are missing that make a big difference.

My Apple TV always repeats the most boring choices, and never shows the good ones. All it needs is a way for the user to select which ones they want, and to never repeat the same one immediately.
Click to expand...
I'd be happy if they would just let me indicate ones that I don't want to see. I am sick to death of the Dubai and Hong Kong ones and wish I could prevent them from showing up.
 
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Is there any way to specify a different drive to store the screen-saver video files? I'd like to keep them on a larger storage disk instead of the boot-drive which is much smaller.
 
Love this, it's great. I immediately installed it on my 2018 MacBook Pro, but it had some issues with playing three videos on two 4K screens and the internal screen. ;) Sticking to one screen now.
 
uptownnyc said:
Is there any way to specify a different drive to store the screen-saver video files? I'd like to keep them on a larger storage disk instead of the boot-drive which is much smaller.
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If you run Monterey it's halfway there in the latest beta, you can pick your cache location in Settings > Cache then "Pick Folder". You'll have to create a folder yourself and select it, it can be on another drive. This is only possible on Monterey (or 10.14 and earlier) because of sandboxing restrictions.

podiki said:
Love this, it's great. I immediately installed it on my 2018 MacBook Pro, but it had some issues with playing three videos on two 4K screens and the internal screen. ;) Sticking to one screen now.
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3x 4K HDR (those videos are encoded with Dolby Vision) is definitely a lot on Intel Macs. Classic 4K is usually a lot better (fully hardware decoded) depending on your model, but less fancy.

M1 Macs handle HDR much better (fully accelerated, though depending on your screen there's some CPU consumption from the window composition), which is pretty good news.
 
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