Your desktop moves. It goes still when you work.
Sarab plays videos, GIFs, web pages and pictures behind your desktop icons. Cover the screen with an app, unplug the laptop or lock the PC, and the wallpaper freezes on its last frame until you are back.
Free and open source, for Windows 10 and 11 and for Linux.
Pick a wallpaper for each display, or one for all of them. The window tells you what plays where, and why a display is resting.
It rests the moment you need the computer
A paused wallpaper uses about as much CPU as a closed one. You never press anything: Sarab watches for these and says which one applied.
- An app covers the display
- That display rests. Others keep playing.
- The laptop runs on battery
- Everything rests, or only when energy saver is on.
- The PC locks or the screensaver starts
- Everything rests until you sign back in.
- You connect over remote desktop
- Everything rests, so the session stays quick.
- Another app keeps the CPU busy
- Everything rests while a build or a game runs.
- An app you chose is open
- Add rules for the apps that need every bit of the machine.
On Linux, wallpapers play but do not rest yet. That comes in the next release.
What you can put on your desktop
- Videos and GIFs in step across every display.
- Web pages and addresses, including ones that react to sound, the song that is playing, or the mouse.
- YouTube links and still pictures.
- Programs that run behind the icons and pause with everything else.
- Your Wallpaper Engine library, imported with its settings.
- One wallpaper across all displays, a new one every few minutes, or a screensaver of your own.
Or drive it from a terminal
Every action is a sarab command, so scripts and hotkey
tools can use it. The installer puts it on your PATH, and
sarab help lists them all.
> sarab set C:\Wallpapers\dunes.mp4 > sarab status Sarab 0.0.10 (pid 7428) Display 1 1920x1080 dunes (video) Playing Display 2 1920x1080 dunes (video) Resting: on battery > sarab --version sarab/0.0.10 Windows/11 build/26100 WebView2/141.0 exe/x64 channel/stable
Download
Every download comes from the latest release on GitHub.
Windows 10 (version 1903 or later) and Windows 11. Installs for your account only, no administrator rights.
- Most PCsIntel or AMD, 64-bit (x64) Download installer
- ARM PCsSnapdragon and other ARM64 laptops Download installer
- Older PCs32-bit Windows 10 (x86) Download installer
A preview. Wallpapers play on X11, and on Wayland desktops such as KDE Plasma, Sway, Hyprland and COSMIC. On GNOME, Sarab runs through XWayland. Wallpapers do not rest on Linux yet.
Install on Windows
- Run the installer. It asks for a language and gets the WebView2 runtime if the PC lacks it.
- If SmartScreen warns about an unknown publisher, choose More info, then Run anyway. The installer is not code-signed yet.
- Sarab checks for updates every few hours, and installs one only when you choose Update now.