How to Change Your Mac Wallpaper Automatically Based on Time of Day

Why your wallpaper should change with the time of day

This might sound like a purely cosmetic concern. It isn't.

Your wallpaper is the largest single-colour area on your screen. When you close all your windows, it is all you see. When you switch between apps with gaps between them, it bleeds through. A bright white or vivid wallpaper in a dark room at 10 PM is essentially a full-screen light source — and if you have read anything about screen luminance and sleep, you know that matters.

Beyond the practical side, there is something genuinely satisfying about a desktop that matches the world outside. Dawn light on your screen when you start work. Golden hour as the afternoon winds down. A starfield or city skyline after dark. It is a small thing that makes your Mac feel more thoughtful.

The question is how to set it up without babysitting it every day.

Method 1: Apple's Dynamic Desktop wallpapers

macOS has included Dynamic Desktop wallpapers since Mojave (2018). These are special images that shift throughout the day, transitioning from a bright daytime scene to a warm sunset to a dark night view based on your location and the current time.

How it works

A Dynamic Desktop wallpaper is a multi-frame HEIC file. Each frame is tagged with a solar elevation angle — the position of the sun relative to the horizon. macOS reads your location, calculates where the sun is right now, and displays the frame that best matches. As the day progresses, the wallpaper smoothly transitions through its frames.

Apple ships about a dozen Dynamic Desktop options, including the iconic Mojave desert, Sonoma rolling hills, and Sequoia redwoods.

How to set it up

1. Open System Settings.
2. Go to Wallpaper.
3. Browse Apple's built-in options. Wallpapers marked "Dynamic Desktop" will shift with the sun.
4. Select one. Make sure Dynamic is chosen (not "Light" or "Dark" variants, which are static).

Limitations

• Apple's images only. You cannot use your own photos as a Dynamic Desktop wallpaper without creating a custom HEIC file (covered below).
• Solar-based, not appearance-based. The wallpaper follows the sun's position, not your light/dark mode setting. If you switch to dark mode at 3 PM on a winter afternoon, your wallpaper still shows a daytime scene.
• No custom timing. You cannot tell a Dynamic Desktop wallpaper to start its night frame at 8 PM. It follows solar angles, period.
• Limited variety. Apple's selection is beautiful but small. After a while, you have seen them all.

Method 2: Create your own Dynamic Desktop (HEIC file)

If you want the smooth, solar-driven transitions of Dynamic Desktop but with your own images, you can create a custom HEIC wallpaper file. This requires a bit of preparation, but the result is a single file that macOS treats exactly like Apple's built-in dynamic wallpapers.

What you need

• A set of photos taken at different times of day, ideally from the same position. 8 to 16 images gives a smooth progression. At minimum, you want: dawn, morning, midday, afternoon, golden hour, sunset, blue hour, and night.
• A HEIC packing tool. Equinox is free, open-source, and the most popular option. Dynaper is a paid alternative with a more visual interface.

How to set it up with Equinox

1. Download Equinox from GitHub and open it.
2. Choose Solar mode (ties frames to sun position) or Time mode (ties frames to clock times).
3. Import your images and arrange them in chronological order.
4. Assign a solar angle or time to each frame. For example: -10° for pre-dawn, 0° for sunrise, 45° for midday, 0° for sunset, -10° for dusk, -18° for night.
5. Export the .heic file.
6. In macOS System Settings > Wallpaper, click Add Photo or drag the file onto the preview. Select Dynamic Desktop as the display mode.

Limitations

• Requires photography. You need a set of images from the same location at different times. Not everyone has these, and shooting a full day-to-night sequence takes planning.
• Technical process. Equinox is straightforward, but assigning solar angles correctly takes some understanding of how solar elevation works.
• Still solar-based. The same limitation as Apple's Dynamic Desktop applies — the wallpaper follows the sun, not your appearance setting. Dark mode at 3 PM still shows a daytime frame.
• Large file sizes. A 16-frame HEIC at 5K resolution can easily be 50–100 MB.

Method 3: Shortcuts automation with a folder of images

If you want something simpler than building HEIC files, macOS Shortcuts can rotate wallpapers on a basic schedule. The idea: put your images in a folder, create a shortcut that picks the right one based on the current hour, and trigger it periodically.

How to set it up

1. Create a folder (for example, ~/Pictures/Wallpapers/Timed/) and add your images, named in order: 01-dawn.jpg, 02-morning.jpg, 03-midday.jpg, 04-afternoon.jpg, 05-evening.jpg, 06-night.jpg.
2. Open Shortcuts and create a new shortcut.
3. Add logic to get the current hour (using Current Date → Format Date → hour format), then use an If block to select the appropriate image file for each time range.
4. Use the "Set Wallpaper" action to apply the selected image.
5. To trigger it automatically, you need a helper app like Shortery, or set the shortcut to run via a cron job or launchd daemon in Terminal.

Limitations

• No native time trigger on Mac. As with dark mode scheduling, Shortcuts on macOS lacks the "Time of Day" automation trigger that exists on iOS. You need a workaround to run it automatically.
• Discrete jumps, not smooth transitions. Your wallpaper changes abruptly from one image to the next. There is no fade or blend.
• Disconnected from dark mode. Your wallpaper and your system appearance are managed separately. If you toggle dark mode manually, the wallpaper does not respond.
• Maintenance overhead. If you change your images, add new time slots, or adjust timing, you have to edit the shortcut logic by hand.

Method 4: Shell script with cron or launchd

The developer-friendly approach. Write a shell script that checks the time and sets the wallpaper using osascript, then schedule it with cron or launchd.

How it works

A basic version looks something like this:

Get the current hour. If it's between 6 and 12, set the morning wallpaper. Between 12 and 17, set the afternoon wallpaper. Between 17 and 20, set the evening wallpaper. Otherwise, set the night wallpaper.

The actual wallpaper-setting command uses AppleScript via the osascript command. You schedule the script to run every 30 or 60 minutes using a launchd plist or a crontab entry.

Limitations

• Requires Terminal comfort. This is not a point-and-click setup. You need to be comfortable writing shell scripts and editing plist files or crontab entries.
• No solar awareness. Your times are hardcoded. As the seasons change, your "evening" image might show at the wrong time.
• Disconnected from appearance. Like the Shortcuts method, your wallpaper and dark mode are managed independently.
• macOS permissions. Your script needs Automation permissions to control the Finder, which macOS may prompt about or block after updates.
• No multi-monitor support. The basic osascript approach sets the same wallpaper on all displays. Targeting individual monitors requires more complex scripting.

Method 5: Solace — wallpaper sync tied to your appearance

Every method above treats wallpaper and dark mode as separate problems. Your wallpaper changes on one schedule, your appearance on another — and the two can easily fall out of sync.

Solace takes a different approach. It manages your appearance and your wallpaper together. When your Mac switches from light mode to dark mode, your wallpaper changes at the same time. No separate timers. No scripting. No HEIC files.

How to set it up

1. Download and open Solace. It lives in your menu bar.
2. In the Wallpapers section, set a light mode wallpaper — the image you want when your Mac is in light mode.
3. Set a dark mode wallpaper — the image you want at night.
4. Choose how Solace handles appearance switching: Solar (follows sunrise/sunset), Custom Schedule (your own times), or Weather-Aware (adapts to cloud cover and conditions).
5. When the appearance switches, your wallpaper switches with it. Every time, automatically.

What makes this different

• Wallpaper and appearance are linked. Your wallpaper changes because your appearance changed — not because a separate timer fired at approximately the right time. This means manual toggles, weather-triggered switches, and scheduled transitions all update your wallpaper instantly.
• Any image, any format. Use JPEG, PNG, HEIF — whatever you have. No need to create multi-frame HEIC files. Just pick two images and you are done.
• Works across displays. If you have multiple monitors, Solace applies your wallpapers to all connected screens.
• Weather-aware. On dark, overcast afternoons, Solace can switch to dark mode (and your night wallpaper) early. When the sky clears, it switches back. Your desktop matches what's happening outside, not just the clock.
• No scripting or maintenance. Pick two images and forget about it. No cron jobs, no HEIC tools, no Shortcuts workarounds.

Comparison: all methods side by side

Which approach is right for you?

If you just want something that looks nice and do not care about customisation: Apple's built-in Dynamic Desktop wallpapers are genuinely beautiful and require zero effort. Pick one from System Settings and forget about it.

If you are a photographer or designer who wants a bespoke day-to-night progression: Create a custom HEIC with Equinox. It takes time upfront, but the result is a wallpaper that behaves exactly like Apple's own dynamic wallpapers, with your images.

If you want your wallpaper to match your dark mode setting: None of the built-in or DIY methods tie wallpaper to appearance. This is where Solace comes in. You pick two images, and your wallpaper changes every time your Mac switches between light and dark mode — whether that switch is solar-based, scheduled, weather-triggered, or manual.

The bottom line: macOS handles wallpaper and appearance as two independent systems. For most people, that means your wallpaper and your dark mode are perpetually out of sync. If that bothers you, the simplest fix is an app that treats them as one thing.

Frequently asked questions