How to Use macOS Mojave's New Dynamic Desktop Feature

[MacRumors]

Apple in macOS Mojave introduced Dynamic Desktops, which are wallpapers that shift with the time of day, changing the lighting and look of the wallpaper with the progress of the sun across the sky.

For example, in the afternoon, the lighting in the wallpaper is at its peak brightness and the image of the Mojave desert is depicted as it would be if you visited it in the daytime with well-lit sand dunes and a bright blue sky.

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At night, the sky in the wallpaper shifts to darker blue to reflect that it's now evening. The shift between daytime and nighttime happens gradually over the course of the day, so you'll see subtle changes each time you look at your Mac's display.

Dynamic Desktop is simple to enable. Here's how:

1. Open up System Preferences.
2. Choose Desktop & Screensaver.
3. Select one of the options from the "Dynamic Desktop" section under "Desktop."
4. Using the dropdown menu underneath the wallpaper's name, make sure "Dynamic" is enabled.

There are two Dynamic Desktop options in macOS Mojave, which work with both Light and Dark Mode.

You can choose between the wallpaper that depicts the Mojave desert and a Solar Gradients wallpaper that shifts from a lighter sky blue in the daytime to a darker twilight blue. Apple is likely to add additional Dynamic Desktop options in the future.

Apple's Dynamic Desktop feature relies on your location to be able to match the lighting of the wallpaper with the lighting outside, so to use it, you will need to have Location Services enabled.

Article Link: How to Use macOS Mojave's New Dynamic Desktop Feature

 

[photograft]

Anybody else having trouble getting it to switch from one to the other? I chose Dynamic Desktop when it first became an option in an earlier release and it just seems to stay on night mode.

 

[Blackstick]

Damn, now I gotta photograph my daughter in the exact same pose in the morning, at high noon and asleep for this to work properly!

 

[EatinPonies]

Damn, now I gotta photograph my daughter in the exact same pose in the morning, at high noon and asleep for this to work properly!

I'm confused. This won't work with custom wallpapers, right? If I understand correctly, we literally only have two options: the dune (pictured) and a color gradient.

I would LOVE for this feature to expand and provide us with more options, but as these are our only two choices, I use something else.

 

[mithion]

I wonder if they'll provide the capability and documentation to make your own dynamic wallpaper at some point.

 

[Superhai]

I wonder if they'll provide the capability and documentation to make your own dynamic wallpaper at some point.

Not sure if they ever will officially publish the format, but the it is pretty standard sequenced HEIF file, but with some extra metadata to describe what solar phase to display each image.

 

[chucker23n1]

I'm confused. This won't work with custom wallpapers, right? If I understand correctly, we literally only have two options: the dune (pictured) and a color gradient.

I would LOVE for this feature to expand and provide us with more options, but as these are our only two choices, I use something else.

These are the two current choices.

I wonder if they'll provide the capability and documentation to make your own dynamic wallpaper at some point.

This guy reverse-engineered how it works. You provide multiple images and assign an altitude and azimuth to each (as well as a boolean of whether the image should be light mode-only). macOS will then pick the most suitable one depending on the current position of the Sun (and not, as one might think, naïvely just based on time of day).

Shouldn't be too hard to write a tool that will generate the metadata, but you'd still have to make appropriate images in the first place.

 

[macduke]

Hopefully since this is the Mac someone will hack something together to make us able to add our own dynamic wallpapers. I do professional photography and would totally spend all day making a good photo for this.

This would be a neat feature to add to iOS as well. I've always been disappointed that Apple hasn't done more with motion wallpapers beyond the floating dots. The 3D Touch wallpapers have never seemed very useful to me because I never press on them—it would be better if they would just activate an animation when you lift your phone up. I don't need a bunch of cheesy effects but feel like some subtle ones like rain hitting on a window with drops slowly rolling down would be cool.

 

[chucker23n1]

Hopefully since this is the Mac someone will hack something together to make us able to add our own dynamic wallpapers. I do professional photography and would totally spend all day making a good photo for this.

If you can make a series of images and provide the Sun's altitude and azimuth for each, most of the work is already done.

 

[tzm41]

Does it also toggle your light/dark mode automatically?

 

[timh]

Can’t wait to set up my own time lapse photos as a desktop image.

 

[Phil in ocala]

I'm confused. This won't work with custom wallpapers, right? If I understand correctly, we literally only have two options: the dune (pictured) and a color gradient.

I would LOVE for this feature to expand and provide us with more options, but as these are our only two choices, I use something else.

______
I would prefer if they FIXED apple mail and itunes...KEEPING IT SIMPLE...AGAIN...THIS other stuff is of no consequence to most people.

 

[macduke]

If you can make a series of images and provide the Sun's altitude and azimuth for each, most of the work is already done.

Well besides someone providing a hack to load our own images. I just need my intervalometer and a place where I can safely leave about $5000 in camera equipment during the day.

 

[unobtainium]

Anybody else having trouble getting it to switch from one to the other? I chose Dynamic Desktop when it first became an option in an earlier release and it just seems to stay on night mode.

I think it defaults to night if you have dark mode enabled.

 

[B2k1977]

About as useful as all the emojis

 

[chucker23n1]

Well besides someone providing a hack to load our own images

Not much to hack. Someone reverse-engineered the format.
[doublepost=1533164526][/doublepost]

About as useful as all the emojis

…or this comment.

 

[yosemitedusk]

Yesterday I made my own spooktacular dynamic wallpaper:

Video here since Mac Rumors doesnt allow twitter embeds even though it is 2018: https://twitter.com/YosemiteDusk/status/1024534480458010624?s=20

 

[MobiusStrip]

Great to see Apple wasting resources on this junk instead of fixing age-old defects. Gee, I sure hope there’s some kind of “touch bar” support for this. That’ll be as useful as rubbing two turds together.

Where’s the big ground-up rewrite of Finder we were promised years ago?

 

[B2k1977]

Not much to hack. Someone reverse-engineered the format.
[doublepost=1533164526][/doublepost]

…or this comment.

Oh please. Lately their QC has been trash, instead of fixing what needs fixing this is what they come up with? Oh boy can't wait to crack my piggy bank open. I used to be a mac user but in my opinion the last few years the value add for what you spend on a Mac just isn't there anymore. The machines and software are not what they used to be. No one seems to want to admit that, instead everyone ooohs and ahhs over features like this that pose no real benefit to the user. Seems the new Apple mantra is form over function. Rather than try to be witty and insult me, change my mind... I dare you.

 

[Xenc]

About as useful as all the emojis

You just used an emoji

 

[JosephAW]

It would be better for Apple software engineers to spend time on more important things. Reminds me of the time wasted on animated emojis on iOS.

 

[abrahamw88]

These are the two current choices.



This guy reverse-engineered how it works. You provide multiple images and assign an altitude and azimuth to each (as well as a boolean of whether the image should be light mode-only). macOS will then pick the most suitable one depending on the current position of the Sun (and not, as one might think, naïvely just based on time of day).

Shouldn't be too hard to write a tool that will generate the metadata, but you'd still have to make appropriate images in the first place.

Yea that guy already wrote a small program to make your own. Find it here:
https://github.com/mczachurski/wallpapper

 

[chucker23n1]

Oh please. Lately their QC has been trash, instead of fixing what needs fixing this is what they come up with? Oh boy can't wait to crack my piggy bank open. I used to be a mac user but in my opinion the last few years the value add for what you spend on a Mac just isn't there anymore. The machines and software are not what they used to be. No one seems to want to admit that, instead everyone ooohs and ahhs over features like this that pose no real benefit to the user. Seems the new Apple mantra is form over function. Rather than try to be witty and insult me, change my mind... I dare you.

No matter how true this is, how is it remotely relevant? Are you going to complain in every single macOS-related post about how Apple could have set their priorities differently? Do you believe the team who developed dynamic desktop pictures would be a good team to instead improve QC?

 

[B2k1977]

No matter how true this is, how is it remotely relevant? Are you going to complain in every single macOS-related post about how Apple could have set their priorities differently? Do you believe the team who developed dynamic desktop pictures would be a good team to instead improve QC?

Uh...yea, because of course they should work on quality control. It used to be the one thing you didn't have to worry about with Apple.

 

[chucker23n1]

Uh...yea, because of course they should work on quality control. It used to be the one thing you didn't have to worry about with Apple.

Nobody is denying that quality control is important. It just isn't even remotely on-topic.