Minimal clock screensavers for Mac

The appeal is easy to explain: a laptop that is not being used becomes a clock. Large, legible, readable across a room. Here is the state of minimal clock screensavers on macOS in 2026.

Fliqlo, the original

Fliqlo is a flip clock — the split-flap kind from railway stations and 1970s bedside tables — rendered white on black at whatever size your screen allows. It has been the default answer to this question for over a decade.

The important detail: the original was built in Flash. Flash was removed from every browser and from macOS, and old copies of Fliqlo simply will not run on an Apple Silicon Mac. The developer rebuilt it as a native screensaver, and that version works fine. If you find Fliqlo on a download aggregator rather than the developer's own site, you are probably looking at the dead one.

It is free, and it remains the best version of exactly this idea.

Padbury Clock

A thin, light, typographically careful clock. Where Fliqlo is mechanical and nostalgic, Padbury is flat and modern — a single elegant time display, nothing else. Free, and a better fit if the flip-clock aesthetic is not for you.

Aerial, with the clock overlay

If you do not want a pure clock but do want to see the time, Aerial will overlay one on top of Apple's aerial videos. You get the drone footage and a discreet clock in the corner. Open source and actively maintained, so it is also the safest of the third-party options.

Getting a clock without installing anything

macOS does not ship a dedicated clock screensaver, which is why this category exists. The closest built-in options:

• The Message screensaver displays custom text large and scrolling. Not a live clock, but it works for a fixed message.
• A Photos-based screensaver pointed at a folder containing one image you made — which can be anything you like, including a static design.
• On an iPad, StandBy mode does the clock job natively, which is worth remembering if you have one on the desk already.

None of these is a real answer. If you want a clock screensaver on a Mac, you install one.

Setting the idle time

Installing the screensaver is only half of it. The delay before it starts is not in the Screen Saver panel — it is in System Settings → Lock Screen → Start Screen Saver when inactive. For a bedside-clock setup you want a short delay there, and you probably want to disable display sleep too, or the screen will go black a few minutes later and defeat the point. How to stop a Mac sleeping →