9 aesthetic Mac wallpapers that move

Each of these is generated on your Mac rather than downloaded, so it can drift slowly behind your icons and never quite repeat. Here are nine looks from Pixel Soup's 35 shapes, with the settings to make each one.

1. Gem with Afterhours

Pink and cyan veins folding through black. It makes a loud wallpaper, so use it for evenings.

2. Neuro with Cobalt Melt

Electric blue filaments that spread and join. It suits a dark desktop.

3. Fluted with Ember

Warm light through ribbed glass, like a lit shop window at night.

4. Spiral with Petal Arc

A bold pink and teal spiral with a retro dither. Change the Seed to move its centre around the frame.

5. Blobs with Gold

One slow drop of molten gold, with plenty of calm space for your icons.

6. Water with Tide

Pool light drifting across deep blue. This one is good for long days at the desk.

7. Swell with Dusk

Round patches of characters that rise and fade on near-black. Set Pixel to about 11.

8. Dots with Bloom

Pink discs on slow orbits, playful without getting in the way.

9. Smoke with Glacier

A ring of pale blue smoke around a dark centre, quiet and a little strange.

Keep the ones you like

When you find a look you love, save it as a preset. It keeps the shape, colours, dither and every slider, so you can switch back from the menu bar: a calm one for work, a loud one for the evening. Change the Seed on any of these for a version nobody else has.

More to explore: liquid metal wallpapers, ASCII wallpapers, and how dithering works. Worried about your battery? Here is what we measured.

Get Pixel Soup, $4.99 Once, no subscription. Also on the Mac App Store.