To put Christmas lights on your Mac desktop, install Wonderfall from the Mac App Store, open its menu bar settings and turn on Lights. Pick a scene such as Holiday Lights or Winter Night, and a string of glowing bulbs appears along the top of the screen. You can change the colors, bulb shape, animation, brightness and glow.
A string of lights is the smallest possible holiday decoration for a computer: it sits along the menu bar, out of the way of your work, and makes the whole screen feel a little warmer. This guide shows how to set it up, how to pick a look and how to keep it comfortable all day.
How to turn on Christmas lights on your Mac
- Install Wonderfall from the Mac App Store. It needs macOS 14.6 or later.
- Open the Wonderfall icon in the menu bar and go to the lights settings.
- Turn on Lights. A string of bulbs appears along the top edge of the screen, just below the menu bar.
- Pick a scene to set the colors, bulb shape and animation in one click, then fine-tune whatever you like.
Which light scene to choose
Scenes are ready-made looks. Each one sets a palette, a bulb shape and an animation together:
- Holiday Lights: a warm festive glow, the classic Christmas string.
- Winter Night: cool and quiet, for the whole winter, not just December.
- Celebration: a little sparkle for a party or a birthday.
- New Year: a bright countdown for the last days of December.
- Cozy Evening: a warm amber glow for dark afternoons.
- Halloween and Spooky Night: pumpkins and skulls after dark.
- Spring Bloom: soft pink light once winter is over.
Change the colors, bulbs and glow
After you pick a scene, every part of it can be changed. Choose another color palette, swap the bulb shape, or pick a different animation: steady bulbs, a gentle twinkle, a chase along the string or a soft candlelight flicker. Brightness controls how strong the bulbs are, and Glow controls the halo around them.
If you use Reduce Motion in your Mac’s accessibility settings, the lights stay steady instead of blinking.
Show the lights over your windows or only on the desktop
The lights have their own placement setting, separate from the weather effects. Keep them over your windows if you want to see them all the time, or on the desktop only so they disappear behind a full-screen app. Clicks always pass through to whatever is underneath.
The string hangs along the menu bar by default. You can move it to the Dock or use both at once. With Hide lights on hover turned on, moving the pointer over the bulbs fades them out so you can see what is beneath.
Add falling snow underneath
Lights and weather are independent, so you can use either one on its own or both together. For a full winter scene, keep the lights along the top and turn on Snow below them. Here is how snow on your desktop works, and how it differs from a wallpaper or a screensaver.
Common questions
Do the lights replace my wallpaper?
No. They are drawn on a transparent layer along the top of the screen. Your wallpaper and windows stay as they are.
Can I have lights without snow?
Yes. Lights and weather effects have separate controls.
Are the lights only for Christmas?
No. There are scenes for winter, New Year, Halloween, spring and any celebration, so the string can stay up all year.
