Non-static desktop wallpaper in macOS

Solution 1:

You can play any video as a Desktop wallpaper using VLC from the command line if you pass the option --video-wallpaper to the VLC executable. This will play the video behind your Desktop files. The VLC executable is located at /Applications/VLC.app/Contents/MacOS/VLC. I have that aliased to vlc, using:

alias vlc='/Applications/VLC.app/Contents/MacOS/VLC'

You can now play any video using:

vlc --video-wallpaper movie.mp4

This will cause the VLC application to be in your Dock. If you would like it to be hidden, follow the instructions in this answer, or copy the example below:

/usr/libexec/PlistBuddy -c 'Add :LSUIElement bool true' /Applications/VLC.app/Contents/Info.plist

uses the native utility PlistBuddy to edit the Info.plist file in /Applications/VLC.app/ so that VLC no longer appears in the Dock. If you would like to undo this so VLC will show up in the Dock again, use:

/usr/libexec/PlistBuddy -c 'Delete :LSUIElement' /Applications/VLC.app/Contents/Info.plist