GoKawiilPhosphene
A video wallpaper engine for macOS Tahoe.
Phosphene is a menu bar app + wallpaper extension that plays your own video files as the macOS desktop and lock-screen wallpaper. It plugs into the system's native wallpaper picker, so videos appear alongside Apple's built-in Aerials in System Settings → Wallpaper.
It is built on top of Apple's private WallpaperExtensionKit framework — the same one Apple's own Aerials use — which means playback runs out-of-process, survives app quits, and integrates with the OS-level lock-screen / idle / sleep lifecycle.
⚠️ Private framework. Phosphene loads WallpaperExtensionKit via dlopen and uses Mirror-based runtime introspection to talk to its XPC types. Apple could change this at any major OS release. The project tracks macOS 26 (Tahoe).
Features
Bring your own videos. Import MP4 / MOV / any AVFoundation-readable file. They show up in the system wallpaper picker.
Import MP4 / MOV / any AVFoundation-readable file. They show up in the system wallpaper picker. Gapless looping. Frame-accurate loops by offsetting PTS/DTS across loop boundaries — no flush, no stutter.
Frame-accurate loops by offsetting PTS/DTS across loop boundaries — no flush, no stutter. Multi-display + per-Space selections. Different wallpapers per display, persisted by macOS.
Different wallpapers per display, persisted by macOS. Power-aware playback. A graduated PlaybackPolicy reduces work or pauses entirely based on thermal state, battery level, on-battery vs AC, Game Mode, and presentation mode (active / locked / idle).
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