Power users like to tweak their Mac OS X Desktops just so, with that menu color, this background, and those applications in the Dock. Non-computer types just can’t understand the importance of the proper arrangement of your virtual workplace: When things are familiar and customized to your needs, you’re more productive, and things get done faster. In fact, if you’ve set up multiple users on your computer under Mac OS X, the Big X automatically keeps track of each user’s Desktop and restores it when that person logs in. (For example, when you use the Mac, you get that background photo of Farrah Fawcett from the ’70s while your daughter gets Avril Lavigne.) You can produce a Desktop that’s uniquely your own.
You may be wondering whether you really need a custom background. That depends completely on your personal tastes, but most computer owners do change their background when presented with the opportunity. Favorite backgrounds usually include
- Humorous cartoons and photos that can bring a smile to your face (even during the worst workday)
- Scenic beauty
- Photos of family and friends (or the latest Hollywood heartthrob)
- Free download Backgrounds Backgrounds for Mac OS X. Backgrounds makes your desktop dynamic with 6 themes: iTunes, Parallax, Quartz, Video, System and Time.
- On your Mac, choose Apple menu System Preferences, click Desktop & Screen Saver, then click Desktop. Open the Desktop pane for me. On the left, find a picture or color: Pictures and colors that come with your Mac: Click the disclosure triangle next to Apple, then select Desktop Pictures or Colors to see thumbnails of available pictures.
- If you liked our selection, perhaps these other posts will interest you too, Mac OS X Lion Wallpapers, Awesome Desktop Backgrounds, Funny Desktop Backgrounds and Colorful Backgrounds. If you are one of those people who love to be assertive and frank then this background is a perfect choice for you.
- The Best Mac Wallpaper Is the One You Pick. As a unique individual, selecting a background for your Mac makes the experience on your computer more personal. There is no such thing as the 'best' wallpaper for your Mac because the one you pick will be the best one for you!
- The company logo (not sure it does much for morale, but it does impress the boss)
If you do decide to spruce up your background, you have three choices: You can select one of the default Mac OS X background images, choose a solid color, or specify your own image. All three backgrounds are chosen from the Desktop & Screen Saver panel, located within System Preferences (see Figure 1).
Jan 16, 2019 - Explore Peyton Thomas's board 'Mac Wallpapers', followed by 161 people on Pinterest. See more ideas about Mac wallpaper, Desktop wallpaper, Macbook wallpaper.
Figure 1: To select a background, go to System Preferences.
You can also hold down Control, click the Desktop, and choose Change Desktop Background from the pop-up contextual menu (or right-click, if you’re using a mouse with multiple buttons).
Picking something Apple
To choose a background from one of the collections provided by Apple, click one of these groups from the list at the left:
- Apple Images: These default backgrounds range from simple patterns to somewhat strange and ethereal flux shapes.
- Nature: Scenic beauty: blades of grass, sand dunes, snowy hills . . . that sort of thing.
- Abstract: Even weirder twisting shapes in flux, this time with bright contrasting colors. Good for a psychiatrist’s office.
- Solid Colors: For those who desire a soothing solid shade.
- Pictures Folder: This displays the images saved in the Pictures folder by the active user.
- Choose Folder: You can open a folder containing images and display them instead.
If you see something you like, click the thumbnail, and Mac OS X displays it in the well and automatically refreshes your background so that you can see what it looks like. (By the way, in the Apple universe, a well is a sunken square area that displays an image — in this case, the background image that you’ve selected.)
Notice your iPhoto albums in the list? That’s no accident — Tiger automatically offers your iPhoto Photo Library so that you can choose images from your iPhoto collection.
Mac OS X automatically manipulates how the background appears on your Desktop. If an image conforms to your screen resolution, fine — otherwise, click the drop-down list box next to the well and you can choose to
- Tile the background. This repeats the image to cover the Desktop. (This is usually done with pattern images to produce a smooth, creamy, seamless look.)
- Fill the screen. This can be used with a solid color to get uniform coverage. The original aspect ratio of the image is preserved, so it’s not stretched.
- Stretch the background to fit the Desktop. If your Desktop image is smaller than the Desktop acreage, this works, but be warned — if you try to stretch too small of an image over too large a Desktop, the pixilated result can be pretty frightening. (Think of enlarging an old Kodak Instamatic negative to a 16 x 20 poster. Dots, dots, dots.) The original aspect ratio of the image is not preserved, so you may end up with results that look like the funhouse mirrors at a carnival.
- Center the image on the Desktop. This is my favorite solution for Desktop images that are smaller than your resolution.
Note that this drop-down list appears only if the Desktop picture that you select is not one of the standard Apple images. All the pictures in the Apple Background Images, Nature, Abstract, and Solid Colors categories are automatically scaled to the size of your screen.
To change your Desktop background automatically on a regular basis, enable the Change Picture check box and then choose the delay period from the corresponding drop-down list box. To display the images in random order, also enable the Random Order check box; otherwise, Mac OS X displays them in the order that they appear in the folder.
Choosing a solid color
If you want your favorite color without the distraction of an image as a background, you can choose from a selection of solid colors. You can choose from these colors the same way that you’d pick a default Mac OS X background image.
Selecting your own photo
You can drag your own image into the well from a Finder window to add your own work of art. To view thumbnails of an entire folder, click the Pictures Folder (to display the contents of your personal Pictures folder) or click Choose Folder to specify any folder on your system. Click the desired thumbnail to embellish your Desktop.
Every major version of Mac OS X macOS has come with a new default wallpaper. As you can see, I have collected them all here.
While great in their day, the early wallpapers are now quite small in the world of 5K displays.
Major props to the world-class designer who does all the art of Relay FM, the mysterious @forgottentowel, for upscaling some of these for modern screens.
If you want to see detailed screenshots of every release of OS X, click here.
10.0 Cheetah & 10.1 Puma
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.
10.2 Jaguar
Jaguar took the same Aqua-inspired theme but added some depth and motion to things. In my head, the trails streaking across the screen were from a set of comets.
10.3 Panther
While Panther inflicted Macs everywhere with Brushed Metal, its wallpaper stayed on brand, refreshing the original 10.0 image.
10.4 Tiger
Many consider Tiger to be the best “classic” version of Mac OS X. While that may or may not be true, it has my favorite Aqua-inspired wallpaper.
Bing Desktop Background For Mac
10.5 Leopard
Complete with a revised, unified user interface and shiny new Dock, 10.5 broke the Aqua mold. As such, Leopard was the first version of OS X to break from the Aqua-themed wallpaper. It ushered in the “space era” of OS X wallpapers, which was used heavily in the new Time Machine interface as well.
10.6 Snow Leopard
The “no new features” mantra for Snow Leopard didn’t ban a new wallpaper, thankfully. This starscape is still one of my favorites.
10.7 Lion
Lion kept up the space theme, this time showing off the Andromeda galaxy. The space nerd in me likes the idea, but the execution of this one leaves dead-last on my list of favorites.
10.8 Mountain Lion
Just like Snow Leopard before it, with Mountain Lion, Apple opted to clean up and revise the existing theme as opposed to changing directions for what would be a less-impactful release of OS X.
10.9 Mavericks
Mavericks marked the beginning of Apple’s “California location” naming scheme for Mac releases. The wave depicted looks as intimidating as the ones in the famous surfing location.
10.10 Yosemite
Yosemite brought another UI refresh to the Mac, making things flatter and more modern. The wallpaper ushered in a new era based on … well … mountains.
10.11 El Capitan
Named after a breathtaking spot in Yosemite National Park, El Capitan was a clean-up year after 10.10.
10.12 Sierra
More mountains.
10.13 High Sierra
Even more mountains.
10.14 Mojave
No more mountains! Mojave brought a new system-wide Dark Mode, and the OS shipped with two versions of its default wallpaper to match. Users could even have macOS slowly fade between the two background images over the course of the day.
Download 5K versions:
10.15 Catalina
macOS Catalina brought big changes to the Mac, including the ability to run iPad apps natively, opening the platform up to a much larger number of developers than ever before. Catalina shipped with multiple variants of its default wallpaper, and the ability to shift between them as time progresses throughout the day:
Download 6K versions:
macOS Big Sur
This version of macOS is such a big deal, Apple changed the version number to 11.0. It will be the OS that brings support for Apple Silicon-powered Macs, and features a brand new design.
Hawaii Background For Mac Desktop
Download 6K versions:
Free Hd Wallpapers For Mac
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