Release notes
Latest releases.
See what changed in each recent version. Release notes can be viewed in-app when updating via Sparkle.
Aerial 4.1.11 November 10, 2026
Latest
What's new :
- Add new dark blur/light blur options for menubar replacement. You can manually configure the blur and tint strength
- Fix memory issue when you poweroff your monitor manually
- Possible fix for Metal crash on sleep
Important :
- Requires macOS 26/27. See Aerial's website for older systems.
- You can start fresh if you get stuck by deleting
/Users/Shared/Aerial. It resets everything, including settings. - If you have an issue, please use Settings > Advanced > Export Diagnostics to generate the logs before posting about your issue in Discord or Github, it will help immensely !
Aerial 4.1.10 November 2, 2026
What's new :
- Add optional menubar background (white, black, or tinted from the current video) if you are bothered with the menubar switching from light/dark too often
- Fix some system logs issues
- Fix Aerial requesting audio playback permissions when audio playback was disabled
- Remove wallpaper cache cleanup feature which is no longer used with 4.1
- Bring back options to set when the screensaver should start in Settings
- Cleanup of Settings (still some work to do)
- Bump dependencies, PaperSaver 0.4.2
Important :
- Requires macOS 26/27. See Aerial's website for older systems.
- You can start fresh if you get stuck by deleting
/Users/Shared/Aerial. It resets everything, including settings. - If you have an issue, please use Settings > Advanced > Export Diagnostics to generate the logs before posting about your issue in Discord or Github, it will help immensely !
Aerial 4.1.9 October 23, 2026
What's new :
- Add monospaced digits, enabled by default, for fonts that support them. This improve the visuals of Clocks/Date overlays.
- Add detection for Intel Macs on macOS Golden Gate. Because Homebrew is no longer supported on these configuration, macports will be suggested as an alternative when third party tools are required. FAQ with more information is available.
- Live feeds can now have a time slice (day/sunset/night/sunrise). They can also be added to playlists.
- Allow right click on videos in the menubar menu, Home view and Live feeds.
- Fix issues preloading Live feeds on paused desktop wallpaper.
- Bump dependencies, PaperSaver 0.4.1
Important :
- Requires macOS 26/27. See Aerial's website for older systems.
- You can start fresh if you get stuck by deleting
/Users/Shared/Aerial. It resets everything, including settings. - If you have an issue, please use Settings > Advanced > Export Diagnostics to generate the logs before posting about your issue in Discord or Github, it will help immensely !
Aerial 4.1.8
What's new :
- Bring back support for the Music overlay to support all audio apps, just like the Now playing widget. Many thanks to Jonas van den Berg (@ungive) for their workaround to support the
mediaremoteframework again. - Add override options for users who want different screensaver configurations whether plugged into external monitors or not. See the Settings > Displays options and change from "All screens" to selected screens to see your options.
- Code review/better threading model. With big thanks to Josh Michaels (@zeromhz) for the help !
Important :
- Requires macOS 26/27. See Aerial's website for older systems.
- You can start fresh if you get stuck by deleting
/Users/Shared/Aerial. It resets everything, including settings. - If you have an issue, please use Settings > Advanced > Export Diagnostics to generate the logs before posting about your issue in Discord or Github, it will help immensely !
Aerial 4.1.7
This version does NOT work on Sequoia. If you still use macOS Sequoia, use 4.0 until you upgrade your mac. You should not be prompted to upgrade on older systems. If you are, please deny the update!
What's new (compared to the betas) :
- Improve migration from 3.X on macOS Golden Gate, you will get prompted for access to your old folder if needed, you may get prompted again if migration had failed so you can at least cleanup your old files and reclaim space
- Fix battery pausing getting stuck (many thanks to @jwarczynski !)
- Add new option to show overlays on lock screen
Important :
- You can start fresh if you get stuck by deleting
/Users/Shared/Aerial. It resets everything, including settings. - If you have an issue, please use Settings > Advanced > Export Diagnostics to generate the logs before posting about your issue in Discord or Github, it will help immensely !
Aerial 4.1.6
This version does NOT work on Sequoia. If you still use macOS Sequoia, use 4.0 until you upgrade your mac. You should not be prompted to upgrade on older systems. If you are, please deny the update!
What's new (compared to the betas) :
- Fix monitor selection no longer working for screensavers. For wallpapers, if you only want to use Aerial on one monitor, you can change settings manually in System Settings to your liking
- Fix time adaptation not responding immediately to changes, including light mode/dark mode UI switches
Important :
- You can start fresh if you get stuck by deleting
/Users/Shared/Aerial. It resets everything, including settings. - If you have an issue, please use Settings > Advanced > Export Diagnostics to generate the logs before posting about your issue in Discord or Github, it will help immensely !
Aerial 4.1.5
This version does NOT work on Sequoia. If you still use macOS Sequoia, use 4.0 until you upgrade your mac. You should not be prompted to upgrade on older systems. If you are, please deny the update!
What's new (compared to the betas) :
- Fix location overlays getting desynced in 4.1.4
- Fix crashes on exit in screensaver only mode, in macOS Golden Gate due to Metal library locking a file
Important :
- You can start fresh if you get stuck by deleting
/Users/Shared/Aerial. It resets everything, including settings. - If you have an issue, please use Settings > Advanced > Export Diagnostics to generate the logs before posting about your issue in Discord or Github, it will help immensely !
Aerial 4.1.4
This version does NOT work on Sequoia. If you still use macOS Sequoia, use 4.0 until you upgrade your mac. You should not be prompted to upgrade on older systems. If you are, please deny the update!
What's new (compared to the betas) :
- Add optional "Don't resume videos" for screensaver mode only, if you want to make sure each screensaver start gives you a new video (as 3.X used to do). This is disabled by default.
- Add optional restart wallpaperagent button, if you keep experiencing issues with wallpaper/screensaver, you can enable it at the bottom of the Settings > Wallpaper panel
- Fix screensaver sometimes showing accelerated video at startup
- Improvement on migration from 4.0 with a custom cache folder that is on your main drive, thanks to @Starksoft !
- Improvement on migration from 3.x with a custom cache folder
Important :
- You can start fresh if you get stuck by deleting
/Users/Shared/Aerial. It resets everything, including settings. - If you have an issue, please use Settings > Advanced > Export Diagnostics to generate the logs before posting about your issue in Discord or Github, it will help immensely !
Aerial 4.1.3
This version does NOT work on Sequoia. If you still use macOS Sequoia, use 4.0 until you upgrade your mac. You should not be prompted to upgrade on older systems. If you are, please deny the update!
What's new (compared to the betas) :
- Fix custom time in playlist no longer working
- Fix some crashes that seem to occur in Golden Gate finale in some scenarios.
Important :
- You can start fresh if you get stuck by deleting
/Users/Shared/Aerial. It resets everything, including settings. - If you have an issue, please use Settings > Advanced > Export Diagnostics to generate the logs before posting about your issue in Discord or Github, it will help immensely !
Aerial 4.1.2
This version does NOT work on Sequoia. If you still use macOS Sequoia, use 4.0 until you upgrade your mac. You should not be prompted to upgrade on older systems. If you are, please deny the update!
What's new :
- Fix two New York videos not showing at the right time. Thanks to @BloobyBabyYoshi on Discord for reporting this !
- Fix screensaver sometimes not starting, in some scenarios that were mishandled with the wallpaper off. Thanks to @deki-haibane for reporting the issue !
Important :
- You can start fresh if you get stuck by deleting
/Users/Shared/Aerial. It resets everything, including settings. - If you have an issue, please use Settings > Advanced > Export Diagnostics to generate the logs before posting about your issue in Discord or Github, it will help immensely !
Aerial 4.1.1
This version does NOT work on Sequoia. If you still use macOS Sequoia, use 4.0 until you upgrade your mac. You should not be prompted to upgrade on older systems. If you are, please deny the update!
What's new (compared to the betas) :
- Fix "My videos" sometimes playing upside down.
- Add ability to manually rotate videos if detection fails
- Add detection for SMB volumes that may not work for external drive support
- Fix crash in fast launch scenarios
Important :
- You can start fresh if you get stuck by deleting
/Users/Shared/Aerial. It resets everything, including settings. - If you have an issue, please use Settings > Advanced > Export Diagnostics to generate the logs before posting about your issue in Discord or Github, it will help immensely !
Aerial 4.1.0
This version does NOT work on Sequoia. If you still use macOS Sequoia, use 4.0 until you upgrade your mac. You should not be prompted to upgrade on older systems. If you are, please deny the update!
What's new (compared to the betas) :
- Proper support for macOS Golden Gate (and Tahoe).
- Add migration for external drive to the new sparsebundle system (many thanks to Brian (@brian163) for his help testing the original system)
- macOS 27 feed. On top of the new videos, you'll also find a new Wallpaper section with some system videos that can be added (or not) to your rotations. Add support for the new localization format used by Apple.
- Add trim cache button to manually trim your cache if you feel so inclined.
- Increase visibility of Aerial version in the popover menu
- Extra fixes
Important :
- You can start fresh if you get stuck by deleting
/Users/Shared/Aerial. It resets everything, including settings. - If you have an issue, please use Settings > Advanced > Export Diagnostics to generate the logs before posting about your issue in Discord or Github, it will help immensely !
Aerial 4.0.16 August 25, 2026
If you are using macOS Tahoe or Golden Gate beta, you probably want to try the 4.1 beta instead of this, you can switch to beta directly in the app in Settings > Auto update.
Version 4.0.X is recommended only if you use macOS Sequoia.
What's new :
- Fix video rotation that didn't work as expected
- Fix for crash on screen connect/disconnect in some scenarios
- Possible workaround for a macOS extension bug
Important :
- Check the FAQ if you have issues here : https://aerialscreensaver.github.io/faq/
- If things don't work, open the app settings and look at the checklist on top. You should get buttons to resolve issues if any.
- You can start fresh if you get stuck by deleting
/Users/Shared/Aerial. It resets everything, including settings.
Aerial 4.0.15 August 22, 2026
If you are using macOS Tahoe or Golden Gate beta, you probably want to try the 4.1 beta instead of this, you can switch to beta directly in the app in Settings > Auto update.
Version 4.0.X is recommended only if you use macOS Sequoia.
What's new :
- Fix support for the latest
yt-dlpcommand line changes
Important :
- Check the FAQ if you have issues here : https://aerialscreensaver.github.io/faq/
- If things don't work, open the app settings and look at the checklist on top. You should get buttons to resolve issues if any.
- You can start fresh if you get stuck by deleting
/Users/Shared/Aerial. It resets everything, including settings.
Aerial 4.0.14
If you are using macOS Tahoe or Golden Gate beta, you probably want to try the 4.1 beta instead of this, you can switch to beta directly in the app in Settings > Auto update.
Version 4.0.X is recommended only if you use macOS Sequoia.
What's new :
- Bring modern pause architecture from 4.1 to fix a bunch of bugs
- Fix crashes related to screen connect/disconnect
- Fix a bunch of bugs related to Time management
Important :
- Check the FAQ if you have issues here : https://aerialscreensaver.github.io/faq/
- If things don't work, open the app settings and look at the checklist on top. You should get buttons to resolve issues if any.
- You can start fresh if you get stuck by deleting
/Users/Shared/Aerial. It resets everything, including settings.
Aerial 4.0.12
Aerial 4. is finally out 🍾 This took a long while, so a massive thanks to all the alpha testers who helped with their testing, bug reports and feedback !
If you are upgrading from the old Aerial Companion, close it in the menubar before install. After you download the app, move it to your /Applications or ~/Applications folder and launch it, it will offer to migrate your data and cleanup the old versions.
Auto updates are provided via Sparkle from now on.
What's new :
- Fix black screen happening in some scenarios (mostly when waking up from sleep). Many thanks to @Antholife for the fix (https://github.com/AerialScreensaver/Aerial/pull/148)
- Add beta channel for upcoming 4.1 updates
- For more info on general V4 changes, check : https://aerialscreensaver.github.io/
Important :
- If things don't work, open the app settings and look at the checklist on top. You should get buttons to resolve issues if any.
- You can start fresh if you get stuck by deleting
/Users/Shared/Aerial. It resets everything, including settings.
Aerial 4.0.11
Aerial 4. is finally out 🍾 This took a long while, so a massive thanks to all the alpha testers who helped with their testing, bug reports and feedback !
If you are upgrading from the old Aerial Companion, close it in the menubar before install. After you download the app, move it to your /Applications or ~/Applications folder and launch it, it will offer to migrate your data and cleanup the old versions.
Auto updates are provided via Sparkle from now on.
What's new :
- Add optional play duration for playlist items. You can play your looping video for longer now.
- Add ability to change scene for My Videos
- Add All fonts submenu for overlays
- For more info on general V4 changes, check : https://aerialscreensaver.github.io/
Important :
- If things don't work, open the app settings and look at the checklist on top. You should get buttons to resolve issues if any.
- You can start fresh if you get stuck by deleting
/Users/Shared/Aerial. It resets everything, including settings.
Aerial 4.0.10
Aerial 4. is finally out 🍾 This took a long while, so a massive thanks to all the alpha testers who helped with their testing, bug reports and feedback !
If you are upgrading from the old Aerial Companion, close it in the menubar before install. After you download the app, move it to your /Applications or ~/Applications folder and launch it, it will offer to migrate your data and cleanup the old versions.
Auto updates are provided via Sparkle from now on.
What's new :
- Add macOS Video Wallpaper cleaner. Use it if you want to free the macOS video cache.
- Fix resume speed not being respected for wallpaper in 4.0.9
- Fix battery pause not considering changes on wake up
- For more info on general V4 changes, check : https://aerialscreensaver.github.io/
Important :
- If things don't work, open the app settings and look at the checklist on top. You should get buttons to resolve issues if any.
- You can start fresh if you get stuck by deleting
/Users/Shared/Aerial. It resets everything, including settings.
Aerial 4.0.9
Aerial 4. is finally out 🍾 This took a long while, so a massive thanks to all the alpha testers who helped with their testing, bug reports and feedback !
If you are upgrading from the old Aerial Companion, close it in the menubar before install. After you download the app, move it to your /Applications or ~/Applications folder and launch it, it will offer to migrate your data and cleanup the old versions.
Auto updates are provided via Sparkle from now on.
What's new :
- Fix auto-pause not correctly behaving on screen reconnect
- Fix wallpaper mode not correctly handling some disconnect/reconnect scenarios where macOS changes the UUID of the screen
- For more info on general V4 changes, check : https://aerialscreensaver.github.io/
Important :
- If things don't work, open the app settings and look at the checklist on top. You should get buttons to resolve issues if any.
- You can start fresh if you get stuck by deleting
/Users/Shared/Aerial. It resets everything, including settings.
Aerial 4.0.8
Aerial 4. is finally out 🍾 This took a long while, so a massive thanks to all the alpha testers who helped with their testing, bug reports and feedback !
If you are upgrading from the old Aerial Companion, close it in the menubar before install. After you download the app, move it to your /Applications or ~/Applications folder and launch it, it will offer to migrate your data and cleanup the old versions.
Auto updates are provided via Sparkle from now on.
What's new :
- Fix windows not opening in macOS 15.1 because of a SwiftUI bug : https://github.com/AerialScreensaver/Aerial/issues/131
- For more info on general V4 changes, check : https://aerialscreensaver.github.io/
Important :
- If things don't work, open the app settings and look at the checklist on top. You should get buttons to resolve issues if any.
- You can start fresh if you get stuck by deleting
/Users/Shared/Aerial. It resets everything, including settings.
Aerial 4.0.7
Aerial 4. is finally out 🍾 This took a long while, so a massive thanks to all the alpha testers who helped with their testing, bug reports and feedback !
If you are upgrading from the old Aerial Companion, close it in the menubar before install. After you download the app, move it to your /Applications or ~/Applications folder and launch it, it will offer to migrate your data and cleanup the old versions.
Auto updates are provided via Sparkle from now on.
What's new :
- Add progress bar for currently playing video in popover
- Fix auto-pause not correctly working on some screen arrangements
- Fix auto-pause not detecting if you changed your screen arrangements
- Fix screensaver per screen selection not working
- For more info on general V4 changes, check : https://aerialscreensaver.github.io/
Important :
- If things don't work, open the app settings and look at the checklist on top. You should get buttons to resolve issues if any.
- You can start fresh if you get stuck by deleting
/Users/Shared/Aerial. It resets everything, including settings.
Aerial 4.0.6
Aerial 4. is finally out 🍾 This took a long while, so a massive thanks to all the alpha testers who helped with their testing, bug reports and feedback !
If you are upgrading from the old Aerial Companion, close it in the menubar before install. After you download the app, move it to your /Applications or ~/Applications folder and launch it, it will offer to migrate your data and cleanup the old versions.
Auto updates are provided via Sparkle from now on.
What's new :
- Fix broken wallpaper <-> screensaver continuity from 4.0.5 🫣
- For more info on general V4 changes, check : https://aerialscreensaver.github.io/
Important :
- If things don't work, open the app settings and look at the checklist on top. You should get buttons to resolve issues if any.
- You can start fresh if you get stuck by deleting
/Users/Shared/Aerial. It resets everything, including settings.
Aerial 4.0.5
Aerial 4. is finally out 🍾 This took a long while, so a massive thanks to all the alpha testers who helped with their testing, bug reports and feedback !
If you are upgrading from the old Aerial Companion, close it in the menubar before install. After you download the app, move it to your /Applications or ~/Applications folder and launch it, it will offer to migrate your data and cleanup the old versions.
Auto updates are provided via Sparkle from now on.
What's new :
- Fix misdetection issue for some configurations in extension (screensaver). Massive thanks to @djp3 for the fix !
- Fix unable to pick playlists in the popover in playlists mode
- Fix independant mode not handling multi monitor setups
- Fix Unlimited cache preference not working as expected
- Fix Rotation : Never not being always respected in some corner cases
- For more info on general V4 changes, check : https://aerialscreensaver.github.io/
Important :
- If things don't work, open the app settings and look at the checklist on top. You should get buttons to resolve issues if any.
- You can start fresh if you get stuck by deleting
/Users/Shared/Aerial. It resets everything, including settings.
Aerial 4.0.4
Aerial 4. is finally out 🍾 This took a long while, so a massive thanks to all the alpha testers who helped with their testing, bug reports and feedback !
If you are upgrading from the old Aerial Companion, close it in the menubar before install. After you download the app, move it to your /Applications or ~/Applications folder and launch it, it will offer to migrate your data and cleanup the old versions.
Auto updates are provided via Sparkle from now on.
What's new :
- Fix wallpaper not going under the dock in 4.0.3 🫣 Many thanks to suchsu and emmgr23 who reported the issue !
- For more info on general V4 changes, check : https://aerialscreensaver.github.io/
Important :
- If things don't work, open the app settings and look at the checklist on top. You should get buttons to resolve issues if any.
- You can start fresh if you get stuck by deleting
/Users/Shared/Aerial. It resets everything, including settings.
Aerial 4.0.3
Aerial 4. is finally out 🍾 This took a long while, so a massive thanks to all the alpha testers who helped with their testing, bug reports and feedback !
If you are upgrading from the old Aerial Companion, close it in the menubar before install. After you download the app, move it to your /Applications or ~/Applications folder and launch it, it will offer to migrate your data and cleanup the old versions.
Auto updates are provided via Sparkle from now on.
What's new :
- Add new pause on battery option for Wallpaper. Report what works/doesn't at https://github.com/AerialScreensaver/Aerial/issues/115
- Add new global shortcut to launch screensaver
- Tiny cleanup of popover UI, replaced "Lock screen" with "Screensaver", maybe it's easier to understand what it does
- Massive log cleanup
- More old files cleanup
- For more info on general V4 changes, check : https://aerialscreensaver.github.io/
Important :
- If things don't work, open the app settings and look at the checklist on top. You should get buttons to resolve issues if any.
- You can start fresh if you get stuck by deleting
/Users/Shared/Aerial. It resets everything, including settings.
Aerial 4.0.2
Aerial 4. is finally out 🍾 This took a long while, so a massive thanks to all the alpha testers who helped with their testing, bug reports and feedback !
If you are upgrading from the old Aerial Companion, close it in the menubar before install. After you download the app, move it to your /Applications or ~/Applications folder and launch it, it will offer to migrate your data and cleanup the old versions.
Auto updates are provided via Sparkle from now on.
What's new :
- Spotify support in Music overlay
- Possible improvement for missing artwork with Apple Music. Sometimes Apple Music will simply refuse to give the artwork, you'll see a music note instead. But this improves it a tiny bit.
- Improve situation with Location services, the permission prompt should clarify why it's needed, and if it's not enabled in the various features that needs it (Weather by location, Time adaptation, WiFi filtering) it will let you know what to do now, not just silently error.
- Add warning on advanced source management about the effects of disabling macOS 26 default source.
- Add workaround if you try launching the app a second time, it will now open the menu.
- Fix broken link in Expansions to the old website
- For more info on general V4 changes, check : https://aerialscreensaver.github.io/
Important :
- If things don't work, open the app settings and look at the checklist on top. You should get buttons to resolve issues if any.
- You can start fresh if you get stuck by deleting
/Users/Shared/Aerial. It resets everything, including settings.
Aerial 4.0.1
Aerial 4. is finally out 🍾 This took a long while, so a massive thanks to all the alpha testers who helped with their testing, bug reports and feedback !
If you are upgrading from the old Aerial Companion, close it in the menubar before install. After you download the app, move it to your /Applications or ~/Applications folder and launch it, it will offer to migrate your data and cleanup the old versions.
Auto updates are provided via Sparkle from now on.
What's new (very short recap) :
- Reenable missing tvOS 26 source
- Fix location overlay not showing on first video in some shared configurations
- Clarify what the shuffle tooltip do (they shuffle at playlist end)
- For more info on V4 changes, check : https://aerialscreensaver.github.io/
Important :
- If things don't work, open the app settings and look at the checklist on top. You should get buttons to resolve issues if any.
- You can start fresh if you get stuck by deleting
/Users/Shared/Aerial. It resets everything, including settings.
Aerial 4.0.0
Aerial 4.0.0 is finally out 🍾 This took a long while, so a massive thanks to all the alpha testers who helped with their testing, bug reports and feedback !
If you are upgrading from the old Aerial Companion, close it in the menubar before install. After you download the app, move it to your /Applications or ~/Applications folder and launch it, it will offer to migrate your data and cleanup the old versions.
Auto updates are provided via Sparkle from now on.
What's new (very short recap) :
- Aerial is now distributed as an AppExtension for perfect compaibility with macOS Sonoma and Tahoe. No more black screens bugs or other annoyances that have plagued previous versions of all third party screensavers to date : Aerial uses the same (private) API that Apple uses nowadays for it's screensavers
- Wallpaper mode with auto-pause : by default plays 4K 240fps videos at a slower pace on desktop, pausing when your windows cover your screens to save gpu, and transitionning to/from screensaver.
- New My Videos feature for easy import of your own videos
- Live feed support : RTSP, http streaming and
yt-dlpare supported (`yt-dlp support provided as a best effort) - New visual overlay editor, just drag'n drop, with more options than ever before. Per screen, with the ability to now have separate overlays on desktop if you want
- Global hotkeys support to play/pause/prev/next
- New video library with a host of new features. Including ordered, fully customizable playlists
- And plenty more, check https://aerialscreensaver.github.io/ for more
Important :
- If things don't work, open the app settings and look at the checklist on top. You should get buttons to resolve issues if any.
- You can start fresh if you get stuck by deleting
/Users/Shared/Aerial. It resets everything, including settings.