Menu
Every Default macOS Wallpaper – in Glorious 5K Resolution. The first two releases of Mac OS X shared the same wallpaper. The sweeping blue arcs and curves helped set the tone of the new Aqua interface. 10.13 High Sierra. Even more mountains. Download 5K version. How to find and change Apple’s default wallpaper on macOS Sierra. Photo: Ste Smith/Cult of Mac. Sure, macOS Sierra has some great new. Apple’s latest operating system comes with some.
Do you want more great wallpaper without having to scour Google Images and Deviant Art for it? Your Mac actually has wallpaper hidden away in a “secret” location, but it’s actually pretty easy to find.
Great wallpaper is hidden in plain sight on your MacThe Images Used by Apple’s Screensavers
If you’ve ever mucked around with the screensavers, you’ve likely noticed that quite a few of them use images to rotate and alternate on your screen to prevent burn-in. Those images aren’t “baked into” the screensaver. They’re actually in a folder on your Mac, and the screensaver just reads them and uses them to save your monitor from suffering burn-in.
These images include gorgeous photographs from National Geographic, and more. There are also nature patterns, images of the cosmos, and aerial photographs. They look beautiful in the screensaver, and they’ll work just as well for great wallpaper backgrounds on your Mac’s display.
Finding Those Hidden Images
I say they’re hidden, but they’re really not. The images are just in a folder that you might not think to check. Spotlight, however, finds them quite handily. To locate them for yourself, just activate Spotlight by clicking the magnifying glass in the top right of the menu bar, or pressing Command-Space on your keyboard. Once Spotlight comes up, type Default Collections. The first hit will probably be the folder you want.
Spotlight easily locates the “hidden” wallpaperIf all of that is too much trouble, here’s the full path to the screensaver images.
These images are all sized at 3200 pixels by 2000 pixels, so they should work nicely for most resolutions. Of course, if you have a 4K or 5K display, they might be a bit small, but they’ll still look gorgeous. All together, Apple has provided 39 additional images that can be used for wallpaper. If you want to have easy access to them, you can add that folder to the Desktop pane of System Preferences easily.
Adding the Folder to Your Repertoire of Great Wallpaper
Just go to System Preferences > Desktop, and you’ll see a plus button. Click on the plus button, and use Finder to choose /Library/Screen Savers/Default Collections and then the folder you want to add. You’ll have to do that for each of the folders within Default Collections, unfortunately. Once done, you’ll have easy access to all of those gorgeous wallpapers, in addition to the ones that are already available to you.
Tip o’ the hat to Reddit user
Apart from the amazing hardware announcements at WWDC 2017, Apple unveiled a new operating system for Mac called macOS High Sierra.
The new operating system comes with many performance improvements under-the-hood and new features, such as the Apple File System, support for HVEC format, better user privacy in Safari, and much more. As is the case with every new iteration of macOS, a new wallpaper was also added to macOS 10.13 that looks beautiful.
Below is a preview of the macOS High Sierra wallpaper. To download it, click on the link below it and save to your desktop.
The first beta version of macOS can be downloaded by developers via the software update mechanism in the Mac App Store or through the Apple Developer Center. The public beta will be released by the end of June, while the official release will be made later this year as a free software update from the MacApp Store.