Out the Window: Live Desktop

Out the Window turns your Mac desktop into a window onto a koi pond, a harbor, space or a city. Each follows the real weather and time of day where you are, moving quietly beneath your icons and windows. Switch scenes any time from Scene in the menu bar. (Out the Window used to be called Little Pond.)

CITY • From high in a tower: a park and a lake, an elevated railway, and a downtown of skyscrapers beyond • Traffic stops and goes at the lights, with a scramble crossing; trains pull into the station, an air ambulance lands on the hospital roof, and a tower under construction grows with the calendar • Offices light up floor by floor and go dark by your clock; after dark, drag across a tower to write in its windows • Click the lake, the fountain, the park or the crossing; around the equinoxes the sun sets right down the avenue, and there are fireworks at the new year

POND • Koi, goldfish and neon tetras glide beneath your icons and windows • Click to scatter food and watch the fish race for it; drag to stir the water • Water lilies in spring, falling leaves in autumn, snow in winter, fireflies and starlight at night

HARBOR • Container ships berth and unload, with cranes, trucks and tugs all at work; click to throw crumbs to the gulls • Tides and waves follow a real marine forecast; holidays bring fireworks, lanterns and dragon boats • Optional Real Port (Hong Kong): the ships at the berth are the ones really in port right now

SPACE • A detailed ring station turns above a planet, its solar wings tracking the sun • Shuttles dock, drones inspect the hull, astronauts go out on spacewalks; freighters, fighters and a flagship pass in the distance • The planet's clouds follow today's weather, and night brings city lights and auroras

REAL WEATHER • Sun, rain, snow, fog and storms; dawn, dusk and night follow your local sunrise and sunset • Streets shine in the rain and umbrellas go up; roofs whiten in snow, and the lake freezes in a hard frost

QUIET AND EASY ON POWER • Drawn with Metal; pauses whenever windows cover the desktop, in full-screen apps, on the lock screen and while displays sleep • Lowers its frame rate and quality on battery or in Low Power Mode, and when you've been away a while

PRIVATE • No account, no ads, no analytics, no tracking • The city is estimated from your time zone by default, with no permission needed; or use your location, with your permission, or choose a city • The location sent to the weather service is rounded to about 10 km first

Weather data by Open-Meteo.com (CC BY 4.0). Harbor tides and waves from the Open-Meteo marine forecast; Real Port ship data from the HKSAR Government Marine Department (DATA.GOV.HK).

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