AnimatedGif

AnimatedGif

AnimatedGif is an screensaver for Mac OSX / macOS that plays animated GIFs.

It also has a background mode to let you run the gif as a desktop background (or wallpaper). The background mode can be enabled under “Screen Saver Options” in macOS.

You can either open only one single GIF file or you can choose a directory that contains more than one GIF file. In case of a selected directory the option panel of screensaver will let you choose a time between 1 and 30 minutes after which the GIF file is randomly changed.

Since 1.5.1 also animated PNG (Animated Portable Network Graphics (APNG)) are supported (starting with OSX 10.10).

Compatibility

Note: AnimatedGif is not working with Catalina(10.15-10.15.7) and early versions of Big Sur(before 11.5.2) since screensavers are to strong sandboxed in this versions of macOS(this means no GIF files can be selected or read from local disk and also background mode is broken), see issue #57 and #63. Later OS versions of Big Sur starting with 10.5.2 make the Sandbox a bit more open and at least allow selection of local user files.

Since release 1.5.0 AnimatedGif supports Metal(API) for rendering.

When started AnimatedGif tries to initialise Metal as first choice for rendering. Only if this initialisation fails (on MacOSX versions older than El Capitan (10.11) or not supported Macs(usually Macs older as Mid 2012; except Mac Pro models from Mid 2010 with supported graphics card)) it tries to initialise OpenGL for rendering(as it was default between release 1.0 till 1.4.0).

Unfortunately the screensaver clock is not working together with background mode and will be disabled if background mode is enabled. But the clock works fine in normal screensaver mode.

Because Big Sur(11.5.2) still sandboxes screensaver the background mode is still not working and so this button will be automaticly disabled since release 1.5.4 when Big Sur(and Catalina) is detected. But background mode is still available on Mojave or earlier versions of OSX.

Version History

This project was originally (release 1.0) written with Xcode 6.2 and SDK for OSX 10.9 Mavericks.

The release 1.4.0 was compiled with Xcode 10.1 with SDK for OSX 10.14 Mojave. It was tested successfully under Mavericks(10.9.5), El Capitan(10.11.6), High Sierra(10.13.6) and Mojave(10.14.5).

The release 1.5.3 was compiled with Xcode 10.2.1 with SDK for OSX 10.14 Mojave. It was tested successfully under Mavericks(10.9.5), High Sierra(10.13.6) and Mojave(10.14.6).

The latest release 1.5.4 was compiled with Xcode 12.5.1 with SDK for macOS 11 Big Sur. It was tested successfully under High Sierra(10.13.6), Mojave(10.14.6) and Big Sur(11.5.2).

Setup - Mac

1. Download and unzip the compiled release file from the releases tab: https://github.com/Waitsnake/AnimatedGif/releases/latest/
2. Double click on the extracted “AnimatedGif.saver” file. macOS will ask if you like to install the screen saver
3. Open System Preferences -> Desktop and Screensaver
4. Select the AnimatedGif Screensaver
5. Click “Screen Saver Options” below the screensaver preview
6. Select your .gif file and adjust other settings to your liking

If there is an error message saying “[AnimatedGif.saver] can’t be opened because it is from an unidentified developer” (Mojave) or “[AnimatedGif.saver] can’t be opened because Apple cannot check it for malicious software.” (Big Sur)

Mojave: Big Sur:

1. Open System Preferences
2. Go to “Security & Privacy”
3. Click “Open Anyway”
   Mojave: Big Sur:
4. Click “Open”
   Mojave: Big Sur:
5. Choose if you like to install screensaver for actual user onyl or all users
   
6. Click “Install”
   Mojave: Big Sur:

Note: On Big Sur steps 5. and 6. appear now even before step 1.

Uninstall AnimatedGif

Automatic Uninstall
In the linked tools here are 3 different ways to uninstall AnimatedGif. Each tool do the same and what way you choose depending only on your personal preferences.

• Uninstall_AnimatedGif.app.zip is an ZIP file containing an macOS application that uninstalls AnimatedGif (recommended way for unexperienced users)
• Uninstall_AnimatedGif.scpt is an AppleScript that uninstalls AnimatedGif
• Uninstall_AnimatedGif.sh is an shell script that uninstalls AnimatedGif
  

Manually Uninstall

1. Open System Preferences -> Desktop and Screensaver
2. Click “Screen Saver Options” and stop the background mode if it was enabled and close options.
3. Right click the AnimatedGif Screensaver and select “Delete AnimatedGif”
4. Click on “Move to Trash” to confirm

Copyright 2019 Marco Koehler (under the conditions of MIT License)