Aerial

Aerial brings scenic video screensavers inspired by Apple TV to the Mac, with optional wallpaper continuity and configurable overlays. It is for users who want a curated or personal video display while idle, and control over which footage plays on each monitor. The current project is an app with bundled extensions, not merely the older standalone .saver module.

Videos, displays and overlays

Browse videos, select favorites and playlists, configure caching and playback speed, and customize per-display behavior. The official interface also shows personal video and live-feed areas. Optional overlays include information such as location, time, weather and now-playing data, while time-of-day adaptation can choose appropriate footage. Availability and dependencies vary by feature and video source.

Version 4.1 uses a native wallpaper extension. Recent fixes address monitor selection, immediate time-adaptation changes, battery pausing, overlays and screensaver exit behavior. Screensaver and wallpaper settings are distinct: the publisher says selecting only one wallpaper monitor can require configuring that display in macOS System Settings.

Installation and current Mac requirements

Download the official 4.1.7 ZIP and copy Aerial.app into Applications, or use brew install --cask aerial. Its exact official app Info.plist requires macOS 26 or later. The executable is verified from that ZIP as a Universal Mach-O with arm64 and x86_64 slices, supporting Apple silicon and Intel. The official ZIP is 10,555,181 bytes; cached videos are additional downloads and can occupy much more disk space.

The repository and cask have older general macOS 15 requirements, but the specific 4.1.7 release explicitly does not work on macOS 15 Sequoia. The publisher directs Sequoia users to 4.0 and says to decline an incompatible update. The checked artifact's macOS 26 minimum is therefore used for this current release rather than the general repository minimum. For earlier systems consult the publisher's appropriate older release.

The cask conflicts with aerial@beta and declares no additional Homebrew formula dependency. Xcode is required to build source, not to run the downloaded app. Enable the appropriate screensaver or wallpaper extension through the app and macOS settings. Migration may prompt for access to the old Aerial folder; the checked sources do not establish a blanket Full Disk Access or Accessibility requirement.

License, account and network

The current application source is MIT-licensed and free. Media, live feeds and third-party services can have their own terms; an MIT software license is not unrestricted ownership of every video. No mandatory Aerial cloud account is described for ordinary local playback. Video downloads, updates, live feeds and weather use network access; locally cached videos have different requirements from live streams.

Weather uses OpenWeather. A source build's public APISecrets.swift contains a blank weather key, so a developer building the app must supply an appropriate key for that overlay. This does not mean every user must install a separate weather program. Review privacy and credential requirements for the external feed or weather service you configure.

Storage, energy and recovery

High-resolution video downloads and playback use storage, graphics resources, bandwidth and energy. Configure cache limits and battery behavior appropriately. Treat live-feed URLs and custom video paths as potentially sensitive. Adding personal media can expose it on a shared or visible screen; choose footage suitable for the setting.

The publisher documents that deleting /Users/Shared/Aerial resets everything, including settings. That is a recovery action, not routine installation: back up desired configuration and understand which cached media you will lose first. For troubleshooting, use Settings > Advanced > Export Diagnostics and review logs for private paths or service details before sharing them.

Sources: Official product and UI, Publisher repository, 4.1.7release and artifact, License.