How to Make a Wallpaper Slideshow on Mac: Photos and Video
Set up a wallpaper slideshow on Mac in System Settings, learn its limits, and rotate live wallpapers automatically with Shuffle or an All Day playlist.
A wallpaper slideshow keeps the desktop from going stale. macOS has one built in: point it at a folder of pictures or a Photos album and it changes the wallpaper automatically, on a timer you choose. It only takes still images, though, so rotating live wallpapers needs an app such as Wallper.
Quick answer: for photos, open System Settings › Wallpaper, add a folder or a photo album, select its Auto-Rotate tile and choose how often. For live wallpapers, use Wallper: turn on Shuffle to rotate your liked wallpapers, or build an All Day playlist that takes turns through the day.
How to set up a wallpaper slideshow on Mac
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Open System Settings › Wallpaper.
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Click Add Folder or Add Photo Album and choose your pictures.
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Select the Auto-Rotate tile under the folder.
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Choose an interval: every 5 seconds, every minute, every 5, 15 or 30 minutes, every hour, every day, on login or on wake.
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Tick Randomly if you want the pictures in a random order.
Gather the pictures into one folder before you start, since the slideshow rotates a single folder or album. Then set it to every 5 seconds for a moment to check that it works, and switch to the pace you want to live with. Every day suits a folder of favourite photos, and on wake gives you a new picture each time the Mac wakes from sleep.
Landscape pictures at least as large as your display look best, since a portrait shot gets cropped, or shown with bars at the sides, on a landscape screen. Calmer pictures are easier to live with than busy ones, too, because your desktop icons stay readable on top of them.
What the built-in slideshow can't do
The built-in slideshow handles photos well, within limits. It won't take video, so live wallpapers are out. Every picture gets the same interval, and there's no way to put a particular picture on screen at a particular time of day. Apple's Dynamic wallpapers do shift through the day, and some of Apple's wallpapers switch with Light and Dark mode, but System Settings can't build either kind from your own pictures.
Can a Mac rotate live wallpapers?
macOS can't do it by itself. Wallper does it in two ways.
Shuffle
Shuffle rotates through your liked wallpapers. Start or stop it with the shuffle button in Wallper's dock, and right-click the button to choose the pace: every 5, 10, 15 or 30 minutes, every hour, or only when you press Next. It remembers the pace you used last, so you can set it once and leave it.
It's the option that needs no planning. The more wallpapers you've liked, the more variety Shuffle has to work with.
All Day playlists
An All Day playlist is a list you choose yourself, and its wallpapers take turns all day. Drag the rows to set the order. The ⋯ menu on a row plays that wallpaper now, sets it as your wallpaper or removes it from the list. The playlist's cover is a small stack of its own wallpapers with the one playing now in front, so the cover tells you which one is on.
Build one when you care which wallpapers appear and in what order. Seasonal sets work well this way: make an October playlist around the Halloween porch below, and switch to it from the menu bar when the month comes round.
| macOS slideshow | Wallper Shuffle | Wallper All Day playlist | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Plays | Still pictures | Live wallpapers | Live wallpapers |
| Rotates | One folder or photo album | Your liked wallpapers | A list you choose, in your order |
| How often | Every 5 seconds to every day, or on login or wake | Every 5, 10, 15 or 30 minutes, every hour, or when you press Next | Takes turns all day, moving on by the clock |
| Where you start it | System Settings › Wallpaper | The shuffle button in Wallper's dock | The Playlists tab in Wallper |
How to set up a live wallpaper slideshow
Shuffle needs no setup beyond a few liked wallpapers: press the shuffle button in Wallper's dock, and right-click it if you want a different pace. An All Day playlist takes a few more steps:
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Download Wallper, which runs on macOS 14.6 or later, and open the Playlists tab.
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Create a playlist and choose All Day.
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Add wallpapers from the library right below the playlist, or use Add to Playlist from any wallpaper's ⋯ menu or right-click menu.
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Drag the rows into the order you want.
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Press Play.
The menu bar panel shows what's driving the desktop. The line under the wallpaper's name says something like "Liked · 12 wallpapers", and clicking it lets you switch between your playlists and Shuffle.
Do live wallpapers fade from one to the next?
Yes. Every change is a crossfade. The next wallpaper starts playing underneath first, then fades in over the current one, which keeps playing until the fade has finished. There's no black frame between them, even with videos that open on a dark frame, and you get the same fade when you press Next as when a playlist moves on by the clock.
Fades look gentlest between wallpapers of similar brightness. When you order an All Day playlist, try to keep neighbouring rows close in tone: a bright beach fading into a night street is a much bigger jump than one dusk scene fading into another.
How often should the wallpaper change?
It depends on how much of the desktop you see. Every 5 minutes comes to 96 changes in an eight-hour day, which suits a desktop that's often on show. If your windows cover it most of the time, every 30 minutes or every hour means there's usually something new when you clear them away, and each wallpaper stays long enough for you to notice what's happening in it.
Shuffle's shortest pace is 5 minutes, so it never flicks through live wallpapers every few seconds the way the built-in slideshow can with photos. If you'd rather pick the moment yourself, set it to change only when you press Next. For photos, every day or on wake keeps a favourite picture around long enough to enjoy it.
Slideshow, schedule or appearance: which do you need?
A slideshow rotates for variety. If you want particular wallpapers at particular times, such as a sunrise scene every morning, use a Day & Night or Dynamic playlist; the time of day guide walks through both. If you want the wallpaper to follow Light and Dark mode, see different wallpapers for Light and Dark mode.
Between Shuffle and an All Day playlist, the question is how much you want to decide. Shuffle needs nothing but your likes and a pace, so it's the one to try first. An All Day playlist takes a few minutes to build, and in return the desktop shows only the wallpapers you picked, in your order.
Only one source drives the desktop at a time. Setting a wallpaper by hand stops Shuffle and playlists, and the same rule covers Media Sync, Wallper's music wallpaper: whichever you choose last takes the desktop, and the others switch themselves off. On macOS 26 and later, if you also use your wallpaper on the Lock Screen, it follows Shuffle by default; the Lock Screen guide covers that side.
Why isn't my wallpaper slideshow changing?
In System Settings, check that the folder's Auto-Rotate tile is selected and not a single picture from it, and that the folder still exists where you left it. A folder on an external drive can only rotate while the drive is connected. If another wallpaper app is running, it controls the desktop until you quit it.
In Wallper, open the menu bar panel and read the line under the wallpaper's name to see what's in charge. Setting a wallpaper by hand stops Shuffle and playlists, so if you did that, pick the one you want again from the same line. If Shuffle is on and nothing changes, right-click the shuffle button and check the pace: it may be set to change only when you press Next.
Where to find live wallpapers to rotate
The Wallper gallery has thousands of 4K live wallpapers, free to browse, and any wallpaper's ⋯ menu has Add to Playlist. Every other way to change a Mac wallpaper is in how to change wallpaper on Mac.
