You are an outworld seed, carried to earth by a meteor. With luck you landed near the highest building, made by men. Earth atmosphere is harmful to you, so you can't stay alive here for long. As part of WWDC 2016, OS X revealed a name change to macOS, thus making a throwback to the same name used in the Classic era from versions 7.5.1-9.2.2 (1995-2002). The reason behind this was to make the name 'so much cleaner and so much more elegant'.
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 and 6K displays.
If you want to see detailed screenshots of every release of OS X, click here.
If you are looking for Mac OS 9 wallpapers, this page is for you.
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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.
Shapeshifter (sornas) mac os. Download 5K version.
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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.
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Download 6K version. Why you do this to me? mac os.
10.3 Panther
While Panther inflicted Macs everywhere with Brushed Metal, its wallpaper stayed on brand, refreshing the original 10.0 image.
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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 is my favorite Aqua-inspired wallpaper.
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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.
Chrono caverns mac os. Download 5K version.
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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.
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10.6 Snow Leopard Server
The server version of Snow Leopard came with its own unique wallpaper that is a real treat:
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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.
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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.
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10.9 Mavericks
White rose mac os. 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.
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10.10 Yosemite
Defeating the virus mac os. 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.
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10.11 El Capitan
Named after a breathtaking spot in Yosemite National Park, El Capitan was a clean-up year after 10.10.
Throwback (gipzo) Mac Os X
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10.12 Sierra
More mountains.
Throwback (gipzo) Mac Os Update
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10.13 High Sierra
Even more mountains. Monkeydunkers mac os.
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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.
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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:
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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.
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Throwback (gipzo) Mac Os Catalina
You may not remember, but the first Apple TV was introduced in 2007 and it was quite different from what Apple TV has become now. Even though the original model can't run apps or have access to Apple TV+, there are still some fun things that more willing users can do with it, including running a full version of Mac OS X.
Back then, Apple TV was powered by an Intel processor instead of an ARM chip — which was first used with the second generation Apple TV. In fact, the first Apple TV has a modified 1GHz Intel Pentium M processor with 256MB of RAM and a regular hard drive, so it's almost like this Apple TV was a Mac mini with different software.
Some users then discovered how to run a full version of Mac OS X on the first generation Apple TV, as it was based on Intel just like other Macs. The process isn't easy since Mac OS X doesn't have the necessary drivers to work on an Apple TV so the system needs to be adapted to that specific hardware, which is essentially like building a Hackintosh computer.
13 years later, the YouTube channel Computer Clan has shared a new video showing this process in detail for those who had no idea that it's possible to install Mac OS X on an Apple TV. To get everything working, they had to remove the internal hard drive from Apple TV and plug it into a real Mac to install Mac OS X Tiger with the required changes.
You can watch the full video below:
Of course, Mac OS X will not run smoothly on a first-generation Apple TV and you can't do much on it, but it's amazing to see everything in action, not to mention the nostalgic feeling behind it.
Either way, this might be something fun to do in your spare time if you still have a 2007 Apple TV model.
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