How to Create Dynamic Wallpapers for Mac

What are Dynamic Wallpapers on Mac and how do they work?

Dynamic Wallpapers are a macOS feature that automatically changes your desktop wallpaper based on either the time of day (and the sun's position) or your system appearance mode. Apple introduced them with macOS Mojave in 2018, bundling a handful of Desert and Peak landscapes that shift through dawn, daylight, dusk, and night.

Under the hood, a Dynamic Wallpaper is a standard HEIC container (High Efficiency Image Container) holding multiple HEIF image frames. Each frame carries embedded XMP metadata that encodes one of two things:

• Solar-based metadata - the sun's altitude angle (ap_D) and azimuth at which each frame should be displayed. macOS reads your location, calculates the sun's current position, and picks the matching frame throughout the day.
• Appearance-mode metadata - a simple flag marking one image as the Light Mode variant and another as the Dark Mode variant. macOS swaps between them whenever you switch appearance.

The result is a wallpaper that feels alive - shifting from the cool blue of pre-dawn through the warm gold of sunset without you lifting a finger.

How to enable Dynamic Wallpapers using Apple's built-in options

Apple ships a small collection of Dynamic Desktop wallpapers with every copy of macOS. To use them:

1. Open System Settings from the Apple menu.
2. Click Wallpaper in the sidebar.
3. Scroll to the Dynamic Desktop section.
4. Click any Dynamic wallpaper to select it. A thumbnail strip will preview the day-to-night progression.
5. Use the dropdown below the thumbnails to choose Dynamic (solar-based), Light (Still), or Dark (Still) if you want a fixed variant.

Apple's built-in selection is intentionally limited - a handful of landscapes and abstract gradients. For a wider range of styles, you will need to look elsewhere.

How do you get more Dynamic Wallpapers beyond Apple's built-in options?

The largest community source for Dynamic Wallpapers is Dynamic Wallpaper Club. The site hosts hundreds of free and premium .heic wallpapers created by designers and photographers around the world. Categories range from cityscapes and nature to abstract art and illustrated scenes.

To use a wallpaper from Dynamic Wallpaper Club:

1. Download the .heic file from the site.
2. Move it to ~/Library/Desktop Pictures/ (this is optional but keeps things organised).
3. Open System Settings > Wallpaper.
4. Click the + button to add a custom folder, or drag the .heic file directly into the wallpaper picker.
5. Select the wallpaper. macOS will automatically recognise its dynamic metadata.

How do you create a custom Dynamic Wallpaper for Mac?

To package your own photos into a valid .heic dynamic wallpaper, the easiest tool is Dynaper, available on the Mac App Store. It provides a visual drag-and-drop interface that hides the XMP metadata encoding entirely.

1. Choose your images. For a solar-based wallpaper, gather one image per time-of-day period (dawn, morning, midday, afternoon, dusk, night). For an appearance-based wallpaper, you just need two images - one for Light Mode and one for Dark Mode.
2. Download Dynaper from the Mac App Store.
3. Import your images and assign time or solar metadata to each frame. For solar-based wallpapers, Dynaper lets you drag frames to a sun-position slider. For appearance-based wallpapers, you label each image as Light or Dark.
4. Export as a .heic dynamic wallpaper file. Dynaper writes the correct XMP metadata into the container automatically.
5. Move the exported file to ~/Library/Desktop Pictures/ to keep it alongside macOS's own wallpapers.
6. Open System Settings > Wallpaper and select your new dynamic wallpaper from the picker.
7. Simpler alternative: If you only need light/dark paired wallpapers and do not want to deal with .heic files, install Solace and assign any two photos in its preferences. Solace handles the switching automatically whenever macOS changes appearance.

What format do Dynamic Wallpapers use on Mac?

Dynamic Wallpapers use the HEIC format - Apple's High Efficiency Image Container, built on the HEIF standard (ISO/IEC 23008-12). A single .heic file acts as a container holding multiple HEIF image frames, each compressed with HEVC (H.265) at various quality levels.

What makes a .heic file dynamic rather than a static image is the XMP metadata block embedded in the container. This metadata encodes one of two schemas:

• Solar schema: Each frame carries an ap_D value representing the solar altitude angle (in degrees) at which it should be displayed, plus an azimuth value. At runtime, macOS CoreLocation calculates the sun's current altitude from your device location and selects the nearest matching frame.
• Appearance schema: Each frame is tagged with a mode index - l for Light and d for Dark. macOS reads the active appearance setting and picks the appropriate frame.

The metadata is typically embedded as a base64-encoded binary plist within the XMP namespace. Tools like Dynaper handle this encoding automatically. If you inspect the raw metadata of an Apple Dynamic Desktop .heic using exiftool, you will see an Apple:DesktopImage block containing the frame order and solar angle data.

Is there a simpler alternative to creating .heic Dynamic Wallpapers?

Creating a .heic file is the standard macOS approach, but it involves several steps: choosing a tool, importing images, assigning metadata, exporting, and placing the file correctly. For users who simply want different wallpapers in light and dark mode, that is a lot of overhead.

Solace solves this without any .heic creation. In Solace's preferences, you assign one photo as your Light Mode wallpaper and another as your Dark Mode wallpaper. Whenever macOS switches appearance - whether triggered by a schedule, sunset, weather conditions, or a keyboard shortcut - Solace automatically changes your wallpaper to match.

The difference in workflow is significant:

• .heic route: Find a tool → import images → assign metadata → export file → place file → set in System Settings
• Solace route: Open preferences → drag in two photos → done

Solace also adds scheduling, weather-aware switching, and a global keyboard shortcut on top of wallpaper management. It is a $4.99 one-time purchase with no subscription, no data collection, and full support for macOS Sequoia and later.

A note on performance

Whether you use Dynamic Desktop .heic files or Solace's paired wallpaper switching, the performance impact on your Mac is negligible. macOS wallpaper rendering is GPU-accelerated at the compositor level - it does not go through the CPU and does not increase memory pressure. On Apple Silicon Macs, the transition between wallpaper frames is handled by the Neural Engine's image processing pipeline. Even on older Intel Macs, wallpaper changes register as less than 0.1% CPU usage in Activity Monitor.

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