StarTorch Wallpaper Engine

Turn your Mac desktop into a living canvas. Play animated video wallpapers behind your icons with zero performance impact.

Built with SwiftUI + AVFoundation. macOS 14+ (Sonoma & later).

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Features

	Feature	Description
🎬	Video Wallpapers	Play any MP4 as your desktop wallpaper, behind icons and above the dock
🖼️	Gallery	Browse and select from a curated collection of wallpapers
📂	Local Import	Import your own videos; auto-converts to HEVC for ~50% smaller files
❤️	Favorites	Heart wallpapers for quick access; cached offline for instant playback
🖥️	Multi-Display	Scales across all connected monitors
🎛️	Menu Bar	Start/Stop, Pause/Resume without opening the app
📊	System Stats	CPU and RAM usage at a glance
💾	In-Memory Playback	Cached wallpapers play from RAM — zero disk I/O
🔁	Seamless Looping	Gapless playback with AVPlayerLooper

Download

Option 1: Direct Download (Recommended)

1. Go to Releases
2. Download StarTorch Wallpaper Engine.zip from the latest release
3. Unzip and drag to /Applications
4. Right-click → Open (first launch only — bypasses Gatekeeper)

Option 2: Build from Source

git clone https://github.com/misaki1301/startorch-wallpaper-engine.git
cd startorch-wallpaper-engine
open "StarTorch Wallpaper Engine.xcodeproj"
# Press ⌘R to build and run

Requirements: Xcode 26+ (or Xcode 16.4+), macOS 14+

Usage

1. The app runs in your menu bar (photo icon) — click to open the gallery
2. Select a wallpaper from Gallery or import your own via My Files
3. Click Start Wallpaper to activate
4. Use menu bar controls to pause/resume or stop anytime

Tech Stack

Layer	Technology
Language	Swift 6, SwiftUI
UI	AppKit (NSWindow, AVPlayerLayer)
Video	AVFoundation (AVPlayerLooper, AVAssetExportSession)
Persistence	SwiftData, UserDefaults, FileManager cache
Stats	Mach APIs (host_cpu_load_info, task_vm_info)

Project Structure

StarTorch Wallpaper Engine/
├── Models/          # WallpaperItem, ImportedWallpaperStore
├── Services/        # WallpaperManager, CacheManager, VideoConverter, StatsService
├── Utils/           # MemoryResourceLoader (AVAssetResourceLoaderDelegate)
├── Views/           # SwiftUI views (Gallery, Favorites, Import, Configuration)
└── Assets.xcassets  # App icon & accent color

Known Limitations

• GPU usage not available (no public per-process GPU API on macOS)
• HEVC conversion may fail on some exotic video formats (falls back gracefully)
• Video sources are currently hardcoded URLs (configurable via code)

Contributing

Contributions welcome! Open an issue or submit a PR.

1. Fork the repo
2. Create a feature branch (git checkout -b feature/my-feature)
3. Commit your changes
4. Push and open a Pull Request

License

MIT License — see LICENSE for details.

Credits

Created by @misaki1301

Wallpaper samples from danbooru.donmai.us and Pexels (testing only).