Tue, 19 Dec 2006

Mac OS X desktop black background (wallpaper)

Posted by Ben Tue, 19 Dec 2006 19:45:00 GMT

A minor annoyance with OS X; by default you can’t have a black desktop background. Even from the “Solid Colours” section there are only a few blue / green / grey colours to choose from.

I can understand why the list of colours might be restricted; (a) time to implement a colour chooser or (b) preventing ugly backgrounds(!!) but that doesn’t help me. I actually want a black background because I have a 24” Dell monitor as my main display with the MacBook Pro sat to one side. It makes sense to have a black background since unless I have lots of apps open there’s nothing to show on the laptop screen (and I want to save energy and the pixels).

This is easily fixed by creating you own .png image and placing it in the correct location (example file below):

/Library/Desktop Pictures/Solid Colors/

Finally, I can have my nice Solid Black background:

Download Solid Black.png

Hope that helps anyone who stumbles across this!

Comments

Leave a response

  1. Obie about 4 hours later:

    Not sure if it’s relevant, but on backlit laptop screens having a white background would actually be more energy-efficient.

  2. Kevin 9 days later:

    Thanks so much for the tip! It has been bothering me since I bought my first macbook in June.

  3. Chas 3 months later:

    Thank you soooooooo much.

  4. maa 3 months later:

    AWESOME !!!!!!!!! now i am complete

  5. BonDone 3 months later:

    Danke schön. Genau das habe ich gesucht!

  6. no one 4 months later:

    actually black is more efficient for a laptop.

  7. Sally Syrose 4 months later:

    Thank you so much. Until now, the only choice I had in “solid colors” was a disgusting muddy grey. Now I have this beautiful black. I am most ‘grey-teful’ Sally

  8. Ram 4 months later:

    Thank you

  9. Danny 4 months later:

    You are the bomb, I’ve had my powerbook for four years and I’ve been too lazy (until now) to fix this!

  10. eatidly@yahoo.com 5 months later:

    thank you very much. looks great with my new MBP! very easy to do with the simple directions. you rock!

  11. Pressi 5 months later:

    Well done and thanks! Just got my iMac 24i fully loaded and my eyes are now sooth-ed

  12. email@kmadisonmoore.com 5 months later:

    download on mac doesn’t work

  13. la in sc 5 months later:

    Worked on my Macintosh.

    Thanks!

  14. la in sc 5 months later:

    You need to get my first sex teacher off your site!

    Why does the trash have to find ways to spread their DIRT?

  15. Ben 5 months later:

    > Why does the trash have to find ways to spread their DIRT?

    Yeah it’s unbelievably annoying, I’m getting a huge amount of SPAM comments (all to linking to porn sites). Luckily Askimet is filtering almost all of them but the odd few still slip through.

  16. Leo 6 months later:

    Many Thanks you completed what Apple missed

  17. Alvin 7 months later:

    You complete me.

  18. Antitheos 7 months later:

    You are my hero….

  19. mesats 7 months later:

    that was a terrific tric. i tried to do something with photoshop and putting in the center and then choosing a black background, but this option, directly lets you choose a black background under solid colors. thats gr8, i like this solution, ITS VERY EFFECTIVE.

  20. Dezza 8 months later:

    Just got my MacBook Pro and wanted a black desktop… Push and clicked on everything I could see, no black desktop.

    But now, black desktop.

    Thank you so much!

    :)

  21. Andrew 9 months later:

    Another happy Mac here. Thanks. =)

  22. duder 9 months later:

    Still useful, still appreciated.

  23. jogreets@gmail.com 9 months later:

    just curious—is there a nice and tidy way to delete the Solid Colors folder within the Desktop Pictures dialog; ir seems while I can do aways with that folder, that Solid Colors with the color wheel in the dialog box, has to remain…

    ...any thoughts?

  24. jed 10 months later:

    C’est la kickass! Thank you very much.

  25. Sonny 10 months later:

    Cheers, saved at least… 15 minutes of my life…. Add up all the 15 minutes from all the happy comments above + people who didn’t comment and thats a fair chunk of time you’ve saved the mac loving public.

  26. Energy Saver 10 months later:

    To be truthful, a black pixel on an LCD will use more slightly more energy to darken the pixel (as that is how LCD pixels work) from white to black. The only energy used on a White LCD is the backlight. The energy used on a black LCD is the backlight + the energy used to polarise the middle part of each pixel).

    Look at the following if you don’t believe me.

    http://commonmansthoughts.blogspot.com/2007_05_01_archive.html

    http://www.colorado.edu/physics/2000/laptops/laptop_screen.html

  27. Genaro 11 months later:

    Thanks a lot your the best

  28. Merlinn about 1 year later:

    This so fab. Many thanks!! Made my day!!

  29. Basic about 1 year later:

    Finally….

  30. anty about 1 year later:

    thanksssssss.

  31. mm about 1 year later:

    OMG!!! THX SOO MUCH! IF U WANT 2 SAVE THE ENVIROMENT, DOWNLOAD THI BLACK BACKGROUND TO UR DESKTOP, AND ALSO CHANGE “BLACKLE.COM” TO UR HOMEPAGE. BLACKLE IS THE SAME THING AS GOOGLE, EXCEPT THE BACKGROND IS BLACK, SO THE COMPUTER DOESNT HAV 2 LIGHT THE SCREEN, WHICH USES ENERGY! DO IT!!!

  32. http://kmadisonmoore.blogspot.com about 1 year later:

    This is simply awesome. I have been wanting this for years…and so simple. Thanks a lot for this. You made many mac users so happy.

  33. George about 1 year later:

    Thank you.

  34. jaap about 1 year later:

    Thanks! I love how for every tiny problem, there is a solution waiting for you a google query away. Cheers!

  35. Kevin about 1 year later:

    Thank you. I thought I was the only one!

  36. me about 1 year later:

    buyahhhh!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

  37. Peter about 1 year later:

    Thanks!

  38. Tim about 1 year later:

    VMT.

  39. ae about 1 year later:

    YES!!! HAHAHAHA. We got you know Steve! hehehe

  40. Paul Larguinho about 1 year later:

    Finally!!!!!! Back in Black!!!!b :)

    Thanks a mil!

Comments