How To Add A Screen Saver On Desktop OS X Mavericks

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In this episode: How To Add Screen Saver on Desktop OS X Mavericks. I consider this video as a fun episode. Once you are done watching, I’m sure you’ll have lots of fun playing around with adding your own screen saver to your desktop. I’ll show three Methods of adding a screen saver to your desktop background.

Terminal Command Used For Methods 1,2 and 3:
/System/Library/Frameworks/ScreenSaver.framework/Resources/ScreenSaverEngine.app/Contents/MacOS/ScreenSaverEngine -background &

For Method 2 Terminal Command:

nano ~/.bash_profile

and

alias NameFoShortCutCommand='The Long Terminal Command'

TRANSCRIPT:
Method 1: Just execute a long one line Command in Terminal.

Method 2: Create an alias in Terminal to simplify re-typing the long one line Terminal Command.

And finally, Method 3: Using Automator to create an Application, that when executed, adds a screen saver to the desktop.

Don’t worry, it might sound a bit complicated, but trust me , the three methods are quick and painless and lots of fun to do.

Sooooo, Let’s Get Started.

First, the preparation, select a screen saver that you wish to use, by launching System Preferences and click on the Desktop & Screen Saver Icon and choose a screen saver but do not activate it.

Next, just copy and paste the long one line Terminal command shown to set a screen saver on the desktop to a text file as you’ll be using it in all three methods. I have included it in the description below.

Now that’s done, let’s start with Method 1. Simply Launch Terminal and type or copy and paste the one line command from the text file.

After pressing carriage return, the screen saver chosen earlier is now on the Desktop background and also works in Dashboard.

Minimize Terminal to continue playing the screen saver on the desktop, Closing Terminal will stop the screen saver.

Method 2, In Terminal, create an alias that will replace typing the long one line command when ever you launch Terminal to set a screen saver.

Simply type the following in Terminal to create an alias:

nano ~/.bash_profile

Now choose an alias name that will be typed in Terminal to set a scrrensaver to the desktop, for the name I’ll choose DTScrnSaver, choose whatever you what for your command, and type the following:

alias DTScrnSave equal apostrophe then copy and paste the same Terminal command used in method 1 and end with another apostrophe.

Then press: ctrl+O to write the command, followed by a carriage return

Then ctrl+X to Exit

Now Close and re-launch Terminal, and type the name of the alias just created, which in my case is DTScrnSaver and after pressing return the screen saver is on the desktop background as before.

Once again, minimizing the Terminal will keep the screen saver and closing Terminal will end it.

And finally, Method 3 will not require having Terminal open to keep the screen saver on the desktop going.

You can create an Application using Automator to add a screen saver to the desktop.

To do so, launch Automator, found in the Other Folder from Launchpad.

Just press done on the pop-up window and click the Automator icon from the Dock here.

Search for Run Command Script and Drag and drop as shown here.

Now, all that’s left to do is copy and paste the Terminal command from the text file and save with whatever name you want.

 Now double clicking on the Automator Application file will have a screen saver on the Desktop as before.

To Remove the screen saver from the desktop just launch System Preferences and click on the Desktop & Screen Saver icon then click on Never as shown.

Alternatively, if you wanted the screen saver to start when you login, simply Launch System Preferences and click on the Users & Groups icon and drag and drop the Automator App created earlier to the Login Items window as shown, now when you re-boot and login, the screen saver will start on the desktop background.

And that’s it, Done like dinner.

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Thanks and Peace.