Sudo defaults write /Library/Preferences/ loginWindowModulePath '/System/Library/Screen Savers/FloatingMessage.saver' This is likely the most useful screen saver option setting for large deployments of Macs and public machines in general: Set the floating Message as the login screen saver in OS X Copy and paste any of these commands into the terminal to set it, the sudo prefix means you’ll need to enter an administrator password for the command to work. Remember there are some limitations about which are allowed, but we’ll make it simple with four examples that work without incident. Now you’ll want to set the actual screen saver itself. 2: Choose What Screen Saver to Display at the Mac Login Window You can set it to be more or less aggressive according to your preferences. The number at the end is the idle time in seconds, thus in the example above, 60 means the screen saver will start after one minute of being idle. Sudo defaults write /Library/Preferences/ loginWindowIdleTime 60 1: Define the Idle Time for the Login Screen Saverįirst you’ll need to define an idle time before the login screen saver appears, the syntax for this is as follows: Launch the Terminal, found in /Applications/Utilities/ to get started. That may sound a bit limited, but you’ll still have some good options available, including Floating, Flip-up, Reflections, Origami, Shifting Tiles, Arabesque, Shell, Flurry, and Message.

Any of the image slideshow screen savers work, and a few of the Quartz Composer screen savers too, but third party screensavers are not supported, and neither are RSS feeds, iPhoto based slideshows, or iTunes artwork. There are some limitations as to what types of screen savers you can use, but overall it’s fairly flexible, and is supported in virtually all semi-modern versions of OS X, from Snow Leopard to Mavericks.

This requires using a defaults command string entered at the command line, which then makes the screen saver visible at the boot login window of OS X, as well as the general login screen if all users have logged out of the Mac. The Macs default boot login screen is fairly boring by default, and though it can be spruced up with custom wallpaper, another option is to set a screen saver to run at the login window of OS X.

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