Latest: 4.0.0 · May 14, 2026

The Apple TV screensaver,
on your Mac. And then some.

Aerial plays Apple's high-fidelity aerial videos — cities, deserts, oceans, the ISS — as your screensaver and live desktop wallpaper. Free, open source, with overlays, multi-display layouts, your own videos, live streaming, expansion packs and more. macOS only.

Download Aerial 4.0.0

9 MB · Released May 14, 2026 · macOS 15+ · Apple Silicon and Intel

Built for macOS 15+ and updated continuously since 2015. The macOS built-in version is nice — Aerial gives you the rest.

Why Aerial

The power-user version of the screensaver Apple ships.

macOS already plays a few aerial videos out of the box — and they look great. But the built-in version stops there: a small fixed library, no overlays, no multi-display tricks, no community packs, no live wallpaper, no way to drop in your own footage.

Aerial picks up where Apple stopped. The full Apple library at native quality (the new 4K 240fps set included), your own videos in the rotation, live camera feeds, drag-and-drop overlays, per-monitor playback, global hotkeys for the wallpaper, and a curated catalog of community-made expansions — all in a single small .app that auto-updates itself.

Free, open source, no telemetry. Support welcome but not required.

Bring your own videos

Drop any `.mov` or `.mp4` into a single folder and Aerial picks it up — title it, tag it, hide it, send it to a playlist.

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4K at 240fps — slowed for your desktop

macOS 26's new 4K 240fps videos play as a calm live wallpaper, smart-paused when your desktop fills with windows.

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Live camera feeds

Stream RTSP cameras, HLS feeds, or YouTube live URLs directly as your screensaver. Real-time, no caching.

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Visual overlay editor

Drag and drop the clock, weather, location captions, and more into seven on-screen zones — with a live preview as you go.

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Community video expansions

Browse and install curated video packs from creators like Joshua Michaels & Hal Bergman — right inside the app, no JSON editing.

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Playlists

Drag videos into curated playlists, share them across devices, and play exclusively from one if that's your mood.

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Every feature in detail

Since 2015

Old project. New tricks.

Aerial was the first to bring the Apple TV aerials to the Mac, almost a decade before Apple shipped a simple version of their own. It's still the most flexible, most feature-rich way to use them — and Aerial 4 is its biggest leap yet: 4K 240fps slowed for the desktop with smart pause-on-occlusion, live camera feeds, your own videos in the rotation, global hotkeys for the wallpaper, a brand-new visual overlay editor, and the new App Extension screensaver API for perfect modern macOS compatibility.

What's new in 4.0 Browse the source on GitHub →