How to set up a live aquarium wallpaper on your Mac

A live wallpaper keeps moving behind your icons and windows while you work. Shoal does it with a small app in the menu bar. Here's how to set it up and make it part of your day.

1. Get Shoal

Shoal runs on macOS 14 Sonoma or later, on Macs with Apple silicon or Intel processors. Coming soon to the Mac App Store. The free aquarium needs no account and no internet connection.

After Shoal opens, the aquarium appears behind your desktop icons on every display, and a small fish icon appears in the menu bar at the top right of the screen. There's no Dock icon and no window to keep open: everything is in the fish menu.

The first time, a short Welcome window opens. Show Me the Aquarium hides the apps covering the tank, drops a pinch of food so the fish come to it and points to the fish in the menu bar; Done closes the window.

Shoal's fish menu: a status line, Feed and Show Desktop each saying it hides your open apps, Pause, the Lighting & Sound section with the lighting presets, Follow the Clock and Ambient Sound marked Pro, Share Your Tank, Unlock Shoal Pro, Settings and Quit Shoal — The fish menu. Its first line says what the water is doing; here windows cover the desktop, so it reads “Resting behind your windows”.

To have the aquarium every time you start your Mac, turn on Open at Login in Settings › General (or Open Shoal at Login in the Welcome window). It stays off until you turn it on. If macOS wants your approval, Shoal shows Open Login Items Settings…; click it and allow Shoal.

4. Feed the fish, and pause when you like

Choose Feed and a pinch of pellets drops into every running tank; the school races for it. When your windows cover the desktop, Feed hides the apps in the way first (the first few times, the line under it says so), only while you look: switch to one of your apps and they come back. To keep them out of the way, choose Show Desktop; they stay hidden until you choose Show Windows in the same menu.

To stop the water, choose Pause and pick how long. A timed pause ends by itself, and the menu's first line says until when.

The Pause submenu: For 1 Hour, until 10:19 AM; Until Tomorrow, until tomorrow at 7:00 AM; and Until I Resume — Pause offers an hour, until tomorrow morning at 7:00, or until you resume. The timed options show when they would end.

5. Keep a picture for when Shoal is closed

Your regular desktop picture shows whenever Shoal isn't running. To keep the aquarium there too, choose Share Your Tank › Set as Desktop Picture: Shoal asks, then saves a still of every display the aquarium is showing on and hands it to macOS. On macOS Sonoma or later this may change only the current Space on each display. Save Still Image…, in the same submenu, saves a PNG wherever you like instead.

6. Use it on several displays

Shoal fills the desktop of every connected display. Each one rests on its own when windows cover it, and Feed drops food into every tank that's running. To keep the aquarium off a display, turn it off in Settings › General › Displays.

7. Make it yours with Shoal Pro

From the fish menu you can try the dawn, dusk and night lighting, Follow the Clock and the water sound on your desktop for up to five minutes while the Shoal Pro window is open, or try all of Shoal Pro free for 7 days. Shoal Pro, a one-time purchase, keeps them and adds six fish species to mix, the living tank, whose fish get hungry and grow on the days you feed them, up to 48 fish, High graphics quality, a betta to keep once you've spotted one visiting, names for every fish (three are free), and fine-tuning: a frame-rate limit and plant density.

The fish menu with Shoal Pro and the living tank: a Fish: hungry row above Feed, and the lighting presets unlocked — With Shoal Pro and the living tank on, the menu shows how the fish are doing; “open the Fish tab” leads to their names and feeding history.

If something doesn't look right

When the aquarium is still everywhere, the menu's first line says why. If it fails to load, your own desktop picture shows in its place and Shoal tries again by itself later. The support page lists every message and what to do, and the battery guide explains when Shoal slows down.