Atheria Support

Covers Atheria: Living Wallpapers for macOS and Atheria: Generative Art for iPhone and iPad.

Atheria: Living Wallpapers

macOS, on the Mac App Store

Getting started

Atheria lives in your menu bar: click the Atheria icon and choose Open Atheria, go to Generative Art in the sidebar, and click any wallpaper to set it. The app keeps working with the window closed.

What is free, what is Pro

• Free: your own video wallpapers (load and change them freely), the Aurora living wallpaper, your wallpaper on every display, a 45 second live preview of any Pro wallpaper on your own desktop, playlists of up to two items, and 30 fps rendering.
• Pro (one-time purchase): the full gallery of living wallpapers, the Flame and Shader Creators, the advanced video editor, presence-aware effects, smart triggers, playlists without limits, a different wallpaper on each display, and 60 fps rendering.

Restoring your Pro purchase

Pro is a one-time App Store purchase tied to your Apple Account. On a new Mac, open the upgrade screen and choose Restore Purchases; the App Store confirms it at no charge.

Privacy Guard

Privacy Guard frosts your whole screen after an idle timeout you choose, or instantly with Cmd Option /. It clears the moment you return. There is no lock screen and no password involved.

Battery and performance

The moment another window fully covers the desktop, rendering stops and the frame rate drops to zero, so a living wallpaper costs nothing while you cannot see it. Atheria also pauses itself on low battery and in Low Power Mode. This is by design; the wallpaper resumes on its own.

The Flame Creator

Part of Atheria Pro. Grow fractal flames from archetypes, a Chaos roll, or a blank canvas, mutate them step by step, and set any flame as your wallpaper. Every flame can be shared as a short text code.

Atheria: Generative Art

iPhone and iPad, on the App Store. Free, no account.

Making flames

The app opens on a living flame. The wand conjures a fresh random flame, the tornado invents a brand-new species with Chaos, and the dice mutate the current flame one step at a time. Tap the canvas once to hide every control for a clean view; tap again to bring them back.

Colors

The palette button opens a compact panel with the four colors that flow through the flame. Change any of them, or shuffle, and watch the flame take the new palette live behind the panel.

Saving and the Library

Use the More menu to save a flame to your Library or keep an invented species as an archetype. The Library tab holds your flames, archetypes, and any shaders you write in the Studio.

Sharing your creations

• Share Card: sends any creation as a branded image plus its code, anywhere you can share an image.
• Copy Code: puts a short text code on the clipboard. Another Atheria user pastes it to grow the exact same living art. Codes are plain text; nothing is uploaded and no account is involved.

Sending a creation to your Mac

• Handoff: with Atheria open on both devices, whatever you are making appears in your Mac's Dock. One click opens it in the matching Creator. Handoff needs the same Apple Account on both devices with Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, and Handoff enabled.
• Copy the code: Copy Code on iPhone, then Paste Code (flames) or Paste Shared (shaders) on the Mac. Universal Clipboard carries it across automatically.

Troubleshooting

• Atheria vanished and the wallpaper stopped (macOS). Open System Settings > Control Center > Allow in the Menu Bar and check that Atheria is switched on. If the wallpaper is still running and only the menu bar item is gone, Atheria is in Dock mode instead: click its Dock icon, then use Settings > System & Performance > Show Atheria in to switch back. Otherwise, macOS quits a menu-bar app when its icon is turned off there, which stops the wallpaper too, and the setting survives a restart. Turn it back on and open Atheria again; your settings and Pro unlock are untouched.
• The wallpaper looks paused (macOS). That is the efficiency engine: it pauses when the desktop is fully covered, on low battery, and in Low Power Mode. It also eases right down after five minutes with no typing or mouse movement, and while about four fifths of the desktop is covered; video wallpapers stop outright when you step away, but only on battery. Reveal the desktop, plug in, or touch the keyboard and it picks back up. These live in Settings > Battery Saving.
• Pro is not showing after a reinstall (macOS). Open the upgrade screen and choose Restore Purchases while signed in with the Apple Account that bought Pro.
• A share code will not paste. Make sure the whole code was copied, including the ATHERIA prefix. Codes are validated on import; a truncated code is politely rejected.
• Handoff is not appearing. Both apps must be open, both devices on the same Apple Account, with Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, and Handoff enabled in System Settings and iOS Settings. Very large shaders can decline to hand off; use Copy Code instead.
• Anything else. Email us; we read everything.