What Is Equinox and What Does It Do?

Updated

Equinox is a free, open-source macOS app for creating dynamic wallpapers. It is aimed at people who want a desktop picture that changes through the day or switches with light and dark mode, without buying a wallpaper pack or using a paid editor. You choose a wallpaper type, supply the images and settings it asks for, and the app builds the dynamic wallpaper locally on your Mac.

What Equinox creates

Equinox produces the dynamic wallpaper types macOS has offered since Mojave: “Dynamic Desktop” (changes through the day) and “Light and Dark Desktop” (changes with system appearance). The site describes three creation modes:

Type What drives the change What you provide
Solar Position of the sun in the sky, based on solar calculations Images plus a location
Time Times you choose during the day Images plus your time points
Appearance System light/dark mode Two images: one light, one dark

The Solar mode includes a calculator for solar calculations, and the site notes you select a location by dragging and dropping. For Appearance, the requirement is explicit: exactly two images, one for each mode.

How the workflow fits together

The site presents the app as three connected parts: choosing a wallpaper type, doing solar calculations in one place, and creating and setting the wallpaper. In practice that means the steps run in order — pick a type, fill in what that type needs (a location for Solar, time points for Time, two images for Appearance), generate the wallpaper, then set it as your desktop right after creation. Everything happens locally, and the site says you can create as many wallpapers as you want.

Cost, availability, and licensing

  • Price: The app is described as free, with support offered via PayPal. The site does not list paid tiers.
  • Open source: Source is available on GitHub, and the app is also distributed through the Mac App Store.
  • No ads or watermarks: User reviews quoted on the site emphasize that it is free “without ads, premium features for money or with a watermark.”

Those review quotes are user opinions published on the site, not independent testing. They do indicate the app was reported to work on Monterey, and reviewers repeatedly describe it as easy to use and cleanly designed — useful signals if you are deciding whether to try it, but not a substitute for checking it on your own macOS version.

Who it suits

Equinox fits you if you already have images you want to turn into a time- or appearance-based wallpaper and prefer a local, no-cost tool. It is a poorer fit if you want a ready-made wallpaper library or a cloud service — the app is a creator, not a catalog. If you only want a single static image, the dynamic wallpaper machinery adds nothing.

To get started, download from GitHub or the Mac App Store, choose Solar, Time, or Appearance, and follow that mode’s inputs; the Solar mode will additionally ask for a location.