Screensavers fell out of style a very long time in the past, however Apple’s Aerial screensaver appears to be like so stunning, it simply may make you rethink. The truth is, with its gorgeous visuals, it’d simply be the very best Mac screensaver round.
The Aerial screensaver began on the Apple TV, exhibiting attractive, sweeping helicopter images of the world’s biggest pure landscapes, underwater sights and cityscapes — even pictures from house. Now, if in case you have a desktop show arrange someplace prominently in your home, you will get the identical stunning vistas in your pc with the Aerial screensaver for Mac.
Right here’s the place to search out this stunning Mac screensaver, plus some setup ideas that may actually assist it shine.
arrange the Mac Aerial screensaver
As soon as important for stopping display burn-in on previous CRT screens, screensavers now not serve a sensible function with LCD shows. However that doesn’t imply they’ve disappeared solely. They will nonetheless deliver a contact of magnificence and persona to an idle display. Apple’s Aerial screensaver, with its sweeping cinematic footage, turns your Mac right into a shifting artwork piece.
And with OLED shows probably coming to the MacBook Professional, they might as soon as once more serve a sensible function in stopping burn-in. Right here’s the way it works.
Desk of Contents:
- Replace your Mac to macOS Sonoma
- Set your Mac to maintain the show on
- Allow the Aerial display saver
- Present as wallpaper
- Extra superior macOS Sonoma options
Replace your Mac to macOS Sonoma
First, it’s essential replace to macOS 14 Sonoma or later. Test which model you’re on by going to the Apple menu within the higher left, then clicking About This Mac. If it says you’re operating macOS 14 or later, you’re already good.
In any other case, go to System Settings > Common > Software program Replace to put in it. From an older model of macOS, this can be in System Preferences > Software program Replace.
macOS Sonoma runs on the iMac (2019 or later), iMac Professional (2017), MacBook Air (2018 or later), MacBook Professional (2018 or later), Mac Mini (2018 or later), Mac Professional (2019 or later) and Mac Studio (all fashions).
Set your Mac to maintain the show on
After you’ve up to date, open System Settings. Should you don’t already use a screensaver in your Mac, it’s essential change a couple of settings first. Click on Lock Display from the sidebar. Ensure that the time you set for “Begin Display Saver” is lower than for “Flip Show Off.”
For instance, you possibly can set Begin Display Saver to 5 minutes and Flip Show Off to 2 hours.
Allow the Aerial display saver

Screenshot: D. Griffin Jones/Cult of Mac
Now, within the Settings sidebar, click on Display Saver. On the high, you possibly can decide a selected scene, however I extremely advocate scrolling all the way down to Shuffle Aerials and hitting Shuffle All.
It’ll rotate by way of the entire units, downloading new ones each infrequently to maintain your Mac screensaver recent.
Alternatively, you possibly can decide a selected set — all of the underwater scenes, all of the landscapes, all of the cityscapes, and many others.
Present as wallpaper
Again on the high of the Display Saver panel, you possibly can allow Present as wallpaper. It will allow one other actually cool characteristic of the Aerials screensavers.
Whenever you unlock your Mac, the screensaver will gently come to a cease to develop into your new desktop background. It’ll pause the place you allow off. When your Mac goes idle once more, your home windows will disappear and the screensaver will decide up proper there.
It’s so cool!
Extra superior macOS Sonoma options
The Aerial Mac screensaver is one in every of many nice options in macOS Sonoma. Now that you just’re operating Apple’s newest, be sure you discover the remaining. We now have an article with 35 extra macOS Sonoma options in addition to a video you possibly can sit again and watch.
We initially revealed this text on how you can arrange the Aerial Mac screensaver on February 23, 2024. We up to date the knowledge on June 27, 2025.