NATIVE MAC LIVING WALLPAPERS · NOW ON THE MAC APP STORE

Your desktop comes alive.
And knows when to disappear.

Atheria turns your desktop into living art. Silk-smooth video loops, and real-time generative art that reacts to your presence, then stop dead at 0 fps the second a window hides them. And it does what most live wallpaper apps simply don't: Privacy Guard frosts the screen after you step away, and instantly whenever you hit a hotkey, so nothing's left on display when you're not there.

Download on the App Store See it live in your browser →

On the Mac App Store · Built for Apple Silicon · No account required

Atheria Pro $9.99 one time · No subscription · No account

Or scroll to watch the engine at work ↓

0 fps when your desktop is hidden

0 data collected, ever

0% native Swift + Metal

0.0% CPU when your desktop is covered¹

Atheria Wallpaper Settings window on macOS

OcclusionMonitor · paused · 0 fps

Metal Engine · 60 fps

Live Metal Shaders

One engine,
every mood.

Every Atheria shader is generative art rendered live on the GPU with Metal. No video file, no loop point, no seam. Pick a style below, then drag the sliders or move your mouse: each one reacts to your presence in real time.

Color Cycle Speed 0.5x

Interactive Desktop Presence

Target Frame Rate

Atheria Shader Engine · Dynamic Silk

BEFORE / AFTER

Drag to bring a desktop to life

Left: the desktop you have today. Right: the same Mac running Atheria's Metal engine. The divider is yours, and so is the cursor. Move it over the live side.

Finder Fri 9:41 AM

WITHOUT ATHERIA WITH ATHERIA · LIVE

FROM THE MAC APP STORE

Early reviews

Quoted in full.

The Power wallpaper app

Look no further if you want performance (no kidding) and customization for power users who have a catalog.

Inglotfanner, July 2026

Superb

Wonderful addition to my wallpaper collection. A nice variety of intriguing patterns, and great choices between spicy animations or cool lazy morphing. The "code-your-own" ability is excellent as well. Solid software, and a developer who takes care of feedback ideas.

SchwanSongs, July 2026

Privacy Guard

Step away, and your screen vanishes

Privacy Guard frosts your whole screen after a short idle timeout you set, or instantly on a hotkey (Cmd + Option + /), so a glance over your shoulder shows nothing. It melts away the instant you return: no lock screen, no password prompt, no fumbling. Just a clean frosted veil over whatever you were in the middle of.

Idle Privacy Opacity 85%

Compensation_Review_Q3.pages · CONFIDENTIAL

Q3 Compensation Review

Total adjusted budget: $1,284,500 across 14 reports.

J. Alvarez: promotion to Staff, +18% base, refresh grant approved.

M. Chen: retention risk (competing offer), counter at L6 band max.

Reorg draft: Platform team merges into Core Infra in November.

Do not distribute. Draft v0.4, HR & Finance eyes only.

PRIVACY GUARD READY

The engine, in detail

Every feature, explained.

Zero-Drain Occlusion Monitor

Battery life is a primary concern on laptops. Atheria continuously tracks window positions on the screen. If other applications fully cover the desktop, rendering halts and frame rate drops to 0 fps instantly. Measured: a flat 0.0% the moment the desktop is covered. While animating, the cost depends on which wallpaper you run.¹

Window Occlusion: 0%

Render Rate: 60 fps

Context Trigger Rules

Automate your workspace visual tone. Switch to a different playlist or wallpaper based on system context: your power source, a time of day phase, or an exact window such as 21:00 to 06:00.

Native Video Workspace

Import and edit high-resolution loop video formats directly within the application. Rotate vertical videos, trim loops, bake seamless forward and reverse loops, and export with hardware acceleration.

Generative Art Gallery

85 living wallpapers rendered in real time with Metal, organized across nine moods from aurora bands to fractal embers. No video files, no loop points, no seams, and most of the library follows your four custom colors.

Shader Creator

Write your own real-time Metal shaders inside Atheria, no Xcode and no build step. Compile and apply live with errors pointed to the line, plus best-effort conversion for GLSL and Shadertoy code you paste in.

Flame Creator

Grow fractal flames: a small genome of weighted transforms, iterated billions of times on the GPU into living structure. Pick any two and breed them, and Atheria crosses them into a litter of six children that inherit whole pieces of both parents. Breed the same pair again and the litter is different. Start from an archetype or a blank canvas, mutate step by step, and share any flame as a short text code.

Presence-Aware Effects

Wallpapers notice you: art leans toward your cursor and quickens with your working rhythm. A single intensity slider sets the reaction anywhere from near-still to lively.

Privacy Guard Screen Veil

A frosted veil covers your whole screen after an idle timeout you choose, or instantly with Cmd + Option + /. It clears the moment you return. No lock screen, no password prompt.

Pause on Low Power

Wallpapers pause automatically on low battery or when macOS Low Power Mode turns on, and resume when you are back on power. Set it once and forget it.

Wallpaper Playlists

Build rotations of your favorite wallpapers and let Atheria cycle them on your schedule, or skip to the next one right from the menu bar when you want a change now.

Per-Display Wallpapers

Mirror one living wallpaper across every connected display, free for everyone. Atheria Pro adds a different wallpaper on each screen, built for docked MacBooks and desktop setups.

Lock Screen Sync

Atheria keeps your lock screen in step with your desktop, capturing a matching still from the live wallpaper so the moment you lock, nothing looks out of place.

Also on iPhone and iPad

Atheria: Generative Art is a separate free app that grows the same fractal flames and carries a real Metal playground for writing shaders on the go. It does not set wallpapers, because iOS does not allow it, but anything you make travels as a short text code, and Handoff drops it straight into the matching Creator on your Mac.

Private by Design

No accounts, no analytics, no servers. Smart library tagging runs on Apple's on-device Vision framework, and the App Store privacy label reads Data Not Collected, because nothing is.

WHY ATHERIA

Not just another live wallpaper app

Most live wallpaper apps hand you a library of video loops and leave your battery and privacy as your problem. Atheria is an engine, not a catalog.

The usual live wallpaper app Atheria

What you get A library of looping videos Generative Metal art that never repeats, plus your own videos

Battery Keeps rendering in the background Drops to 0 fps the moment the desktop is hidden

When it pauses Usually only when an app goes fullscreen Whenever the desktop is fully covered by anything: measured 0.0% CPU

Free tier Watermarked trial A full-quality live shader, no watermark, no time limit

Privacy Wallpaper only Privacy Guard frosts your screen when you step away

Make your own Import a video file Author generative art in the built-in creators, plus a full video editor

Share creations Upload to a community platform, login required A short text code: send it anywhere, nothing uploaded, no account

Pricing Often a subscription $9.99, one-time, no subscription

Your data Accounts and cloud libraries No account, nothing leaves your Mac

QUESTIONS

Everything you might ask

What is Atheria?

Atheria is a native macOS app that replaces your static desktop wallpaper with living art: real-time Metal shaders and looping video wallpapers. It is built in Swift for Apple Silicon and Intel Macs.

Will a live wallpaper drain my battery?

Atheria is built around battery efficiency. Its Occlusion Monitor watches your windows and drops the wallpaper to 0 fps the moment the desktop is fully covered, so it does no rendering work you cannot see. Measured with Activity Monitor: a flat 0.0% CPU whenever the desktop is covered. While animating, the cost depends on which wallpaper you choose.

Is Atheria free?

Atheria is free to try, with an optional one-time Atheria Pro purchase that unlocks the full shader library, the Flame Creator, a different wallpaper on each display, smart triggers, and the advanced video editor. Your wallpaper runs on every display for free, and you can run any Pro wallpaper live on your own desktop for 45 seconds before you buy. There is no subscription and no account. Pro is a one-time $9.99 purchase.

Is there an iPhone or iPad version?

There is a separate free app, Atheria: Generative Art, for iPhone and iPad. It grows the same fractal flames and includes a Metal playground for writing shaders on the phone. It does not set wallpapers: iOS does not let a third-party app do that, which is why the wallpaper engine is a Mac app. Creations move between them as short text codes, and with both apps open Handoff carries what you are making into the matching Creator on the Mac.

Which Macs does Atheria support?

Atheria runs on macOS 15 (Sequoia) or later, on both Apple Silicon and Intel Macs.

Can I use my own videos?

Yes. You can import your own video wallpapers and edit them inside Atheria: trim loops, rotate, create forward-and-reverse boomerang loops, and re-encode to efficient HEVC. H.264, HEVC, and ProRes are supported.

What is Privacy Guard?

Privacy Guard frosts your entire screen after a short idle timeout, or instantly with a hotkey, so a glance over your shoulder shows nothing. It clears the moment you return, with no lock screen or password prompt.

Does Atheria collect my data?

No. Atheria collects no personal data, has no accounts, and runs entirely on your Mac. Smart library tagging uses Apple's on-device Vision framework, so nothing is uploaded. See our Privacy Policy.

Do I need an account?

No. There is no account, login, or registration for anything, including sharing: your creations travel as short text codes you can send in any chat, and a friend pastes the code into Atheria to bring them to life. Nothing is uploaded and no cloud login is required.

Does it work with the Lock Screen?

Yes. Lock Screen Sync captures your live wallpaper and keeps your Lock Screen matched to your desktop, so unlocking feels seamless. The Lock Screen image is a still, which means it costs zero battery while your Mac is locked.

Your desktop comes alive.And knows when to disappear.

One engine,every mood.