Overview
Mural is a next-generation dynamic wallpaper app for Mac. It lets you set any video or image as your desktop wallpaper, then layer real-time color effects, live widgets, animated text, and atmospheric audio on top — all designed from a single creative workspace called the Lab.
Mural runs fully on its own — video wallpapers, Lab effects, Themes, and all creative tools work right out of the box with no additional setup. For dynamic lock screen sync, Apple's system architecture restricts what App Store apps can access at the system level. To bridge this, Mural works together with Mural Engine — a free companion app that only needs to run temporarily when you initiate a lock screen sync, and can be quit afterward.
Requirements
- macOS: 14.0 Sonoma or later
- Processor: Apple Silicon (M1 or later) or Intel — both fully supported
- Mural Engine (optional, for lock screen sync only): downloaded separately from muralflow.com/mural-engine
Getting Started
1. Install Mural
Download and install Mural from the Mac App Store. On first launch, Mural will appear in your menu bar. Click the icon to open the main window.
2. Set Your First Wallpaper
From the Home tab, click Import to load any video or image from your Mac. Once loaded, click Apply to set it as your live desktop wallpaper.
You can also browse the built-in Themes library — hand-crafted cinematic wallpapers each paired with a matching atmosphere soundtrack — and apply them with a single click.
Themes
The Themes library contains curated cinematic wallpapers, each crafted with a matching atmosphere soundtrack. Hover over any card to see a live silent preview. Click to apply instantly.
Flow Mode picks a random theme from the current category — useful when you can't decide.
Freeze, Loop & History
After importing a video, the Home tab gives you precise editorial control.
Freeze Frame
Scrub the filmstrip to find any perfect still frame and lock onto it. Use the left/right arrow keys for single-frame stepping.
A-B Loop
Set an in-point and out-point to loop a specific segment of the video with frame-accurate precision.
History
Every wallpaper state you've applied is automatically saved as a history entry — complete with the exact Lab effects, Freeze frame position, or Loop range active at that moment. Each entry stores a thumbnail for quick recognition. Tap any entry to restore it exactly as it was. History is preserved across restarts.
Lab — Grading
Professional color control over any wallpaper.
- Presets: Cinematic, Noir, Vivid, Warm, Cyber — one-tap moods
- Manual controls: Hue, Saturation, Brightness, Contrast
- Texture effects: CRT Scanlines and Film Grain, rendered by Metal GPU shaders in real time
All adjustments are previewed live in the Lab window. Click Apply to push changes to your desktop.
Lab — Widgets
Add live elements directly on top of your wallpaper.
Clocks
Choose from three styles — Digital, Flip, and Analog — each with multiple sub-variants. Every color element is fully customizable. Toggle 12/24-hour format. Freely drag, resize, and rotate any clock on the canvas.
Weather & Atmosphere
Overlay real-time particle effects: Rain, Snow, Lightning, or Fog. Enable Nature Mode for an automatic weather cycle that shifts throughout the day without manual input. Each weather effect is linked to the Ambience audio system — its corresponding environmental SFX plays automatically and can be mixed independently alongside your music track.
Momo Companion
A 3D companion character whose appearance — species, colors, personality, and outfit — is deterministically generated from your Mac's serial number. Uniquely yours, consistent across reinstalls. Momo carries an umbrella in rain and reacts to lightning strikes.
M-CORE
A system monitor capsule showing live CPU and RAM usage directly on your desktop.
Custom Media
Import your own images, GIFs, or video clips as floating overlay widgets. Transparent backgrounds are fully supported — PNG images with alpha channels and videos with transparency composite directly over the wallpaper, making it easy to blend custom elements with the underlying scene. Multiple custom media widgets can be on screen simultaneously. Each video widget has its own independent volume fader.
All widgets support free positioning, scaling, rotation, and a nine-position grid for quick snapping to common screen locations.
Lab — Mantra
A typographic overlay engine that places animated text directly on your desktop.
Six animated 3D engines
- Topology — geometric mesh formations
- Ribbon — flowing ribbon trails
- Torus — orbiting ring patterns
- Orbit — planetary orbit paths
- Vortex — spiral vortex motion
- Stairs — cascading stair sequences
Each engine has its own motion parameters (speed, distortion, repeat) and full RGB color control — with HDR values supported for glow effects.
Serendipity Mode
Automatically rotates a curated stream of phrases on a set interval, keeping your desktop feeling alive without any manual input.
Custom Text
Write your own words and display them through any of the six engines.
Lab — Ambience
Layer atmospheric audio over any wallpaper, from curated soundscapes to your own music library.
Built-in Presets
A library of curated ambient soundscapes — ready to apply in one tap directly from the Lab.
Custom Playlist
Import your own audio files and build a personal playlist inside the Lab. Arrange tracks in any order, then choose from four playback modes: sequential, list loop, single track loop, or shuffle. Full playback controls include play/pause, skip, and seek.
Weather Audio Linkage
The Ambience system is linked to the Widget weather layer. When a weather effect (Rain, Snow, Lightning, Fog) is active, its environmental SFX plays alongside your music — each running through a separate audio channel so they can be mixed independently without interfering with each other.
Audio Console
All audio in Mural is routed through a four-track mixing console, accessible in Settings.
- Video — the original audio from your wallpaper video
- Atmosphere — the Ambience track (theme soundtrack or your custom playlist)
- SFX — environmental sound effects from the active weather widget
- Custom Media — audio from any video widgets placed on your desktop
Each track has an independent volume fader. A global Master bus controls the overall output level. Individual video widgets also carry their own per-widget volume control within the Widgets panel.
Apply & Lock Screen Sync
Apply
Pushes all current Lab settings — Grading, Widgets, Mantra, Ambience — from the preview window to your live desktop. What you see in the Lab preview is exactly what will appear.
Lock Screen Sync
Requires Mural Engine to be running. Navigate to the Lock Screen tab and follow the on-screen steps. The process typically completes in under a minute. Your lock screen will display your current wallpaper with all Lab effects baked in.
Lock screen sync requires a one-time administrator password prompt per sync. This is a macOS security requirement for writing to protected system files.
Mural Engine Setup (Optional — Lock Screen Sync Only)
To sync your wallpaper to the lock screen, Mural Engine must be installed and running during the sync process.
- 1Download Mural Engine from muralflow.com/mural-engine
- 2Move the app to your Applications folder
- 3Open it — macOS may show a security prompt since it was downloaded from the web. Right-click the app icon and choose Open to proceed
- 4Grant Full Disk Access when prompted (required to read and write system wallpaper files)
- 5Mural Engine will appear in your menu bar. Open Mural, go to the Lock Screen tab, and follow the steps to sync. Once the sync is complete, you can quit Mural Engine — it does not need to stay running
FAQ
macOS 14.0 Sonoma or later.
Yes. Mural is a Universal Binary and runs natively on both Apple Silicon (M1 and later) and Intel Macs.
Yes. Mural supports your primary display plus one external display. Running more than one external display simultaneously is not currently supported due to performance considerations.
Lock screen sync requires Full Disk Access — a macOS permission that lets Mural Engine interact with your lock screen settings. Distributing Engine as a separate download keeps everything transparent: you always know exactly what's running on your Mac, and you're in full control of when it runs.
Full Disk Access allows Mural Engine to read and write the system wallpaper file used by macOS for the lock screen. Without it, the sync cannot be performed. This permission is used solely for wallpaper sync — nothing else on your Mac is accessed.
Syncing the lock screen requires updating a protected system file. macOS prompts for administrator authorization to allow this. The prompt is handled entirely by macOS — no credentials are stored by Mural or Mural Engine.
No. Mural saves your complete wallpaper state — including all Lab effects, Freeze/Loop settings, and widget configurations — and restores it automatically on login.
Mural includes a Battery Saver mode in Settings that automatically pauses wallpaper playback when your Mac is on battery power.
Yes. Mural Engine is only required for lock screen sync. All other features — video wallpapers, Lab effects, Themes, Widgets, Mantra, Ambience — work fully without it.
Open Mural → Settings → enable Launch at Login.
Download the latest version from muralflow.com/mural-engine and replace the existing Mural Engine in your Applications folder.
1. Quit Mural from the menu bar icon
2. Quit Mural Engine from its menu bar icon
3. Delete both apps from your Applications folder
4. To clean up permissions: System Settings → Privacy & Security → Full Disk Access → remove Mural Engine