Screensavers, you say? They’re more art than function these days. But, why not inject something either beautiful or useful into this mundane task of screen locking. Yes, it would be best if you still were locking your screen unless you want your four-year-old Slack messaging your co-workers. I have used a hot corner to the lower left to start my screen saver, locking the screen after a few seconds (if I accidentally trigger it). My screensaver will kick in after a healthy 10 minutes (I do work on multiple machines throughout the day). But, it’s a security practice you should never get out of the habit of doing. Lock your screen when you walk away.
fliqlo
Welcome padbury.app visitor’s! The Padbury Clock wasn’t built by me and modern versions of macOS no longer support the old code. Instead, I recommend fliqlo as a modern replacement. Since running older code like Padbury Clock is potentially hazardous, I will no longer make a copy of it available (sorry, lawyers).
Fliqlo is my new, go-to screensaver of choice for macOS. fliqlo is a simple yet elegant screensaver, Fashioned after old-school flip clocks, that will keep you updated continuously.
Fliqlo for Mac/Windows is a clock screensaver that allows you to make your desktop/laptop device screen look like a flip clock. It displays the time with flip animation in large white numerals against a black background. Thanks to its visibility, you can read the time even from a distance.
Drift
A prepackaged screensaver with macOS since Catalina Beta 3, Drift has a flowy kind of feel. It’s a screensaver that makes you feel like you could be sitting in a digital ocean of 1s and 0s washing over you. It’s currently the default on my daily driver because it’s so relaxing.
Aerial
Aerial is a Mac screensaver based on the new Apple TV screensaver that displays the Aerial movies Apple shot over New York, San Francisco, Hawaii, China, etc. Starting with version 2.0.0, it also includes videos shared by Joshua Michaels & Hal Bergman!
Aerial is completely open source, so feel free to contribute to its development.
On macOS 14 (Sonoma) and later these are available and managed natively without 3rd party software.
This screensaver is cool af. For years, the Apple TV came with these beautiful flyover screensavers that were just wonderful. Finally, someone came along and grabbed them out of the Apple TV Developers Kit and made them available on GitHub for everyone to enjoy.
Aerial is a wonderfully maintained and curated collection of Apple created, extravagant flyovers of places and dives through things. There is even a Linux port of Aerial. It’s a real delight to have it on the Apple TV I use to monitor OpenShift.tv. It’s a friendly reminder that there’s a much bigger world out there.
But, a gentle reminder that if you don’t have a graphics card, you’re going to be eating a lot of CPU with your screensaver.