Every major version of Mac OS X macOS has come with a new default wallpaper. As you can see, I have collected them all here.
- Jan 23, 2014 The Mac, which turns 30 on Friday, wasn't known as a gaming platform in its early days, but there were some ground-breaking games that came to the Mac first. Let's take a look.
- Control Center for Mac. Instantly access the controls you use most — like Wi-Fi and Bluetooth — and new controls to play music and enable Dark Mode for your display. Designed just for Mac, the new Control Center lets you add controls and drag favorites to the menu bar to customize it just for you.
- 1) On the left side, scroll down to Other Modules. 2) Select Battery. 3) On the right, check the boxes for Show in Menu Bar and Show Percentage. If you have the option for Show in Control Center enabled as well, you’ll see the battery percentage there too.
- Microsoft is piloting Mac OS support for its social service AltspaceVR. The test is “intended to help us better understand the feasibility of expanding AltspaceVR to Mac OS” and you can give.
While great in their day, the early wallpapers are now quite small in the world of 5K and 6K displays.
The game has a bit of a history with on and off mac support, but with the launch of Stormblood, the game is back to firmly supporting MAC users. Eve Online-CCP's epic space MMORPG has been Mac OS X compatible since November, 2007. Trove-The voxel based MMORPG from Trion Worlds officially released a Mac Client in October, 2015.
If you want to see detailed screenshots of every release of OS X, click here.
If you are looking for Mac OS 9 wallpapers, this page is for you.
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10.0 Cheetah & 10.1 Puma
The first two releases of Mac OS X shared the same wallpaper. The sweeping blue arcs and curves helped set the tone of the new Aqua interface. https://freeboard.mystrikingly.com/blog/splayer-4-2-0-1.
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10.2 Jaguar
Jaguar took the same Aqua-inspired theme but added some depth and motion to things. In my head, the trails streaking across the screen were from a set of comets.
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10.3 Panther
While Panther inflicted Macs everywhere with Brushed Metal, its wallpaper stayed on brand, refreshing the original 10.0 image.
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10.4 Tiger
Many consider Tiger to be the best “classic” version of Mac OS X. While that may or may not be true, it is my favorite Aqua-inspired wallpaper.
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10.5 Leopard
Complete with a revised, unified user interface and shiny new Dock, 10.5 broke the Aqua mold. As such, Leopard was the first version of OS X to break from the Aqua-themed wallpaper. It ushered in the “space era” of OS X wallpapers, which was used heavily in the new Time Machine interface as well.
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10.6 Snow Leopard
The “no new features” mantra for Snow Leopard didn’t ban a new wallpaper, thankfully. This starscape is still one of my favorites.
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10.6 Snow Leopard Server
The server version of Snow Leopard came with its own unique wallpaper that is a real treat:
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10.7 Lion
Lion kept up the space theme, this time showing off the Andromeda galaxy. The space nerd in me likes the idea, but the execution of this one leaves dead-last on my list of favorites.
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10.8 Mountain Lion
Just like Snow Leopard before it, with Mountain Lion, Apple opted to clean up and revise the existing theme as opposed to changing directions for what would be a less-impactful release of OS X.
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10.9 Mavericks
Mavericks marked the beginning of Apple’s “California location” naming scheme for Mac releases. The wave depicted looks as intimidating as the ones in the famous surfing location.
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10.10 Yosemite
Yosemite brought another UI refresh to the Mac, making things flatter and more modern. The wallpaper ushered in a new era based on … well … mountains.
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10.11 El Capitan
Named after a breathtaking spot in Yosemite National Park, El Capitan was a clean-up year after 10.10.
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10.12 Sierra
More mountains.
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10.13 High Sierra
Even more mountains.
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10.14 Mojave
No more mountains! Mojave brought a new system-wide Dark Mode, and the OS shipped with two versions of its default wallpaper to match. Users could even have macOS slowly fade between the two background images over the course of the day.
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10.15 Catalina
macOS Catalina brought big changes to the Mac, including the ability to run iPad apps natively, opening the platform up to a much larger number of developers than ever before. Catalina shipped with multiple variants of its default wallpaper, and the ability to shift between them as time progresses throughout the day:
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macOS Big Sur
This version of macOS is such a big deal, Apple changed the version number to 11.0. It will be the OS that brings support for Apple Silicon-powered Macs, and features a brand new design.
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To the great distress of many people, Mac OS 9 broke something with respect to the beloved and quirky After Dark 4.0 screen saver. It has been reported that the After Dark engine is incompatible with Mac OS 9, but for whatever reason, it simply will not work on Mac OS 9 equipped Macs. Happily, there is an answer to that, and this blog post addresses it.
There is a patched version of After Dark for OS 9 that can be downloaded from the Macintosh Garden site, at http://macintoshgarden.org/apps/after-dark-os-9. Someone going by the screen name of Daxeria produced this patched version, earning the acclaim and adulation of the entire Mac OS 9 using Macintosh community, I am sure. However, when you install it and restart, you may be a little disappointed. It has only the most basic of screen savers, After Dark’s initial starry night screen saver. Where, oh where are the beloved flying toasters, bad dogs and the rest of the crazy and lovable characters from After Dark 4.0??
Take heart. I have recently installed After Dark onto Mac OS 9.1, flying toasters and all, and this post provides a step by step “recipe” for repeating this feat.
First things first. To be successful, you will need to have a copy of After Dark 4.0, so lets start with this and get a copy. In my case, I had purchased a copy on eBay some time ago, and had it installed on a Mac OS 8.6 machine, so I was “good to go”. If you do not already have After Dark 4.0, you will need to acquire a copy. You can do this either by buying it on eBay as I did, or downloading it from http://www.macintoshgarden.org at this URL http://macintoshgarden.org/apps/after-dark-40.
Once you have After Dark 4.0, to install a full After Dark for Mac OS 9.x, do the following:
Sanicball pc/mobile mac os. 1/ Download After Dark for Mac OS 9 from the above URL.
Dark Space Robot Mac Os X
2/ Install this version of After Dark by dropping the After Dark 9 control panel into your Control Panels folder, and the After Dark Files folder also into your Control Panel folder.
3/ Restart your Mac and make sure that you can access and run the newly installed After Dark screen saver. As mentioned above, it will have only a few boring screen savers available, but those screen savers are not the objective of this step anyway.
The key objective of this step is that a Mac OS 9 compatible version of the After Dark engine has now been installed, and all of the necessary folder structures and support files are now in the right places.
4/ From the After Dark 4.0 that you either have previously installed, or have just acquired from the above URL, open the After Dark Files folder. From there, copy over the After Dark 4.0 folder’s contents (this is where you will find your beloved flying toasters, and many, many more quirky and fun screen savers) to the same named folder in your Control Panels After Dark Files folder.
Dark Space Robot Mac Os 11
5/ Repeat this procedure for the After Dark Images folder – copy over the contents of the After Dark 4.0 folder’s After Dark Images folder to the same named folder in your Control Panel folder’s After Dark Files.
6/ Restart your Mac
Your After Dark 9 install should now provide access to all of the wild and wonderful screen savers you know and love from After Dark 4.0.
7/ Enjoy!