Add images to an existing system screen saver
Sep 11, '06 07:30:00AM
Contributed by: Anonymous
OS X comes with a number of screen savers. I happen to use Cosmos, which contains astronomical pictures from the Hubble telescope and elsewhere. It is possible to add your own pictures to the screen saver and to see the results immediately. Suppose you want to add X.jpg to Cosmos. Begin by copying X.jpg to the Desktop (just for the sake of sanity). Launch Terminal and enter the following two commands:
$ cd /System/Library/Screen Savers/Cosmos.slideSaver/Contents/Resources
$ sudo cp /Users/emn/Desktop/X.jpg
(Using sudo is necessary to get around the restricted permissions in the System folder.)
This can be done with any of the system's resident screen savers. Just substitute the name of the screen saver package in place of Cosmos. Be sure you quit Terminal before you forget that you changed the working directory!
Next time you run the screensaver, your X.jpg will show up. You can verify this immediately by running System Preferences and selecting Desktop/Screen Savers, then clicking on Cosmos and testing it.
[robg adds: First, I don't recommend this as a general solution -- it'd be better to copy the images out of the saver you'd like to use, add them to iPhoto, and then make an album in iPhoto to use as a screen saver. That way, you're not modifying a system folder. However, if you are going to go this route, you can do it all in the Finder. Just control-click on the Cosmos.slidesaver (in /Sytem -> Library -> Screen Savers), pick Show Package Contents, then navigate into Contents -> Resources. Add your images and provide your admin password when asked. Note that it's very possible that a system update will overwrite your added images. Again, I would recommend copying the images *out* rather than adding your own *in* as it's a safer way to do things.]
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