Big Sur Screen Saver

Joseph

that was a pretty smug response, or it sure seemed to me that way.

this "problem" has been around for a long time, an people have found ways to work around it.

Apple seems to make it harder with each iteration of the system software to find new work arounds, and no it seems that have completely closed the door.

and it feels purposeful. perhaps you or Apple can explain why this is a security issue, or some such?

the screen saver options are only for certain system screensavers.

i use my photos library, and there are no "options". and as TV-1968 said below, missing are the arrow keys to move through the slides show.

Apple has also removed the possibility of change through "slideshow preferences" in the system folder.

over time, Apple has taken away this really important feature instead of adding to it, enhancing it.

it really annoys me to no end.

Hi Ibj9245m,

Thanks for using Apple Support Communities. We understand you have some questions about options for a Screen Saver in macOS Big Sur. We're happy to provide some information to help.

We recommend checking out the resource below. This goes over all the options for a Screen Saver, including how to select your own photos, and change the speed they cycle through.

Change Screen Saver preferences on Mac

Thanks!

CM_confused wrote:

I checked the resource and it says to select pictures from your Photo Library from the Source dropdown. They don't tell you how to navigate to Photo Library in Big Sur. There are many Libraries, but I cannot find Photo Library... where is it?

Us the menu "Source" shown in my screenshot. At the bottom of the Source menu you can select Photos Library. This will use the the Photos Library that is currently designated as your System Photos Library, see this link:

System Photo Library overview

I have found a series of problems with Big Sur Screen Saver loading and displaying personal photos, an apple feature I have loved for over two decades:

1. If often loses track of the photo library, reporting no photos.
2. When it displays photos it often shows them in their original, rather than their edited format.
3. It often shows the photos in blurry format.

Is Apple working to fix this problem?

Which system version do you have installed?

On macOS Big Sur you can select to shuffle the slide order, but you can no longer change the duration.

And the "Shuffle" option may initially be missing. I had to rest the selected album again by clicking the "Source" menu, then waiting a bit, selecting again the Photos Library, waiting again, until the list of albums appeared, then select the album again. And after a while the "Shuffle" option appeared, at least for the Classic Theme.

I would also love to have the options to step the screensaver using the arrow keys, and even more the ability to display a title, capture date, and the location or other metadata with the photos in the screensaver. This has not been possible since Photos has been released as a successor to iPhoto five years ago. The slideshows and screensavers are now very basic and disappointing and I am not very optimistic that it will change in the near future.

Hello, I don't seem to have the "Screensaver Options" that is mentioned in the help section to change the duration of my photos for my Screensaver. What am I missing?

Also I still miss the days when you could go back and forth in Screensaver using the arrow keys. A simple and useful tool cut for no apparent reason!

Hi Leonie

Thanks for your post. I am using Big Sur. Apple seems to lose decent and popular functions with each new OS. Why do they keep up a practise that annoys and alienates their loyal customers!!?? Small problems in the grand scheme of things just unnecessary

.

I checked the resource and it says to select pictures from your Photo Library from the Source dropdown. They don't tell you how to navigate to Photo Library in Big Sur. There are many Libraries, but I cannot find Photo Library... where is it?

you can download, Artsaver, developed by a gentleman called Gabriel Z.

https://www.informatik.uni-bremen.de/~zach/software/ArtSaver/index.html

works grate on big sur

[Personal Information Edited by Moderator]

If you're trying to have the screensaver take images from your own photo album but you're not seeing your album as an option in the dropdown menu and you've also recently updated the OS …  you might try first opening Photos.app: it may need to run some updates for itself before it can be seen by the screensaver. Doing this fixed this same issue for me after I updated to 11.2.3.

i am going to try to use this tip from salver4 about the app ArtSaver::

you can download, Artsaver, developed by a gentleman called Gabriel Z.

https://www.informatik.uni-bremen.de/~zach/software/ArtSaver/index.html

works grate on big sur

i am copying all of my photos in PhotoLibrary to an external disk, and will try to use that as my photo source for ArtSaver.

wish me luck!

Joseph_S is the one who responded to your original post with what i saw as a condescending pointer to basic settings for screensaver.

remigijusb

this is the answer:

https://www.informatik.uni-bremen.de/~zach/software/ArtSaver/index.html

Artsaver

it really solved the problem for me.

took a while to copy my photos to a separate drive, but it works quite well.

i haven't measured it but it seems that in Catalina, the first images change relatively quickly and then after a while, they change a lot less frequently. To be honest, I like that (if it is really occurring and not just my imagination) because sometimes when I am away and then look, there will be a great photo up there and I'll either want to enjoy it for a bit or else call someone into the room to look at it.

in my experience, every OS iteration before Catalina, i was able to bypass the limitations of the timeing of the screensaver by editing the slideshow preferences in the system folder.

that was put to an end by the security systems inherent in the later OSs and bifurcating the internal drive into separate compartments.

then it was no longer possible to tamper with the OS at all.

ArtSaver gives me options to viewing my slides on my screensaver, and also has an app that you can watch your slides and go directly to the slide in finder.

the drawback, is that you may not use your Photos library as the picture source. you have to copy the photos to a separate folder (or, as i did, to another external drive) and direct ArtSaver to look there.

took a while to do the copying, but now the viewing pleasure is all mine.