Where can I get a "black screen" screensaver for OS X Lion?

Mac OS X Lion doesn't come with a "black screen" screensaver. Where can I get a screensaver that works with Lion and blanks the screen?

lexu

Posted 2011-08-27T09:04:50.217

Reputation: 1 822

my bad. I can't unvote it (unless you change the answer), but I would. I was under the impression that you just asked this question with some no googling; but your question before the edit shows otherwise. Sorry. :( – RookieTEC9 – 2015-12-15T20:36:15.093

Answers

I uploaded this for you, you can download the screen saver file here.

If you want to do it manually, do it like this:

Open Quartz Composer.app. This is no longer ships with Xcode by default. You need to install Xcode first and then download the Graphics Tools for Xcode. Be sure to download the appropriate version. I copied the application files to /Applications/Xcode.app/Contents/Applications/ so they are listed under Xcode->Open Developer Tool.
Create a new blank file with the Screensaver template. Delete everything except for the "Clear" panel. You can also start with a totally empty window and drag "Clear" from the Patch Library to the work area.
Save it under /Users/your-user/Library/Screen Savers to make it available for you only, or /Library/Screen Savers to make it available for all other users. Doing the latter, you'll have to enter an admin password.
Then, select it in System Preferences under "Other".

enter image description here

And there you go, a simple black screensaver.

Alternatively, you could of course just put the monitor to sleep, or let it display a folder of pictures, which only has one black picture inside.

slhck

Posted 2011-08-27T09:04:50.217

Reputation: 182 472

I have 2 external monitors connected to MBP and putting the monitor to sleep is 1) very slow and 2) causes confusion when it wakes up - Cmd-Tab list of applications start being displayed on my secondary monitor which is very inconvenient. With "blank" screensaver I can nicely lock and unlock the screen with no slow wake up of all 3 monitors and no Cmd-Tab running away to another monitor. Thank you, slhck! And btw, it works with OSX 10.10.5. – Evgeny Goldin – 2015-08-19T00:26:40.903

Also works with OS X 10.11 El Capitan! – John J. Camilleri – 2015-12-10T07:46:32.410

I've seen several hackintoshes that cannot hibernate or sleep, and if you switch the display off, you have to reboot to get it back online. – xApple – 2017-07-21T10:11:27.633

Thanks, that worked, but I had to save 'blank_screen.qtz' it to my home directory then 'sudo cp ~/blank_screen.qtz /Libraray/Screen\ Savers/blank_screen.qtz' .. could you update your post plz. – lexu – 2011-08-27T09:40:48.883

You only have to do this if you want to make it available system-wide (notice the difference between ~/Library, which is in your home folder, and /Library, which is for all users. The former should work — but I'll adapt it to clarify. – slhck – 2011-08-27T09:45:07.193

@lexu Interestingly, this one showed "Quartz Composer" after a while. I fixed it and hope this now works perfectly. – slhck – 2011-08-27T13:19:34.047

4I'm curious why you wouldn't just put the monitor to sleep...why incur the extra wear and tear on your backlight, trivial though it may be? – peelman – 2011-08-27T15:19:01.017

@peelman I don't know — OP asked for it, I suggested to put the monitor to sleep anyway. Could be a problem with external display though (some take a while to get back from a display sleep or even switch to another input source). – slhck – 2011-08-27T15:27:04.497

my monitor takes for ever to go to sleep, until it does the changing screen is anoyingly distracting ... and it doesn't sleep at all, it seems, with some screen savers - can the thing detect 'action' on the port? – lexu – 2011-08-28T05:40:13.970

Simple is best for me.

Black Image

Place this flat black image in a folder and set that folder as your screensaver source for the Classic screensaver style.

Classic → Choose Folder

bmike

Posted 2011-08-27T09:04:50.217

Reputation: 2 773

I did the same, and while this is indeed simple, I found that my system gets ridiculously hot while the screen is locked, with the fan spinning at max speed. – Stefan Majewsky – 2015-03-09T14:16:13.623

Odd - you might need to look into activity monitor or ssh into the Mac to see why the CPU/GPU is pegged. Or you could just turn off the screen entirely - why waste cycles drawing a black background? – bmike – 2015-03-09T14:52:59.620

When the screen is off, the load goes away. But I cannot control how long it takes for the monitor to turn off; my system settings are somewhat locked down by corporate policy. I've decided to go with the accepted answer and "programmed" a blank screensaver. – Stefan Majewsky – 2015-03-10T08:59:59.277

Just get this one, it worked fine for me on 10.6 and now on 10.7:

There it is, THE REAL screensaver. Since this screen saver will only display a black blank screen it should actually save your screen. Of course, if you REALLY want to save your screen use the "Energy saving" settings in your system's preferences. Now featuring transparency! It's Freeware, so don't hesitate to Media:Blankscreensaverfolder120.zip download the 1.2.0 version (for Snow Leopard).

Goetz

Posted 2011-08-27T09:04:50.217

Reputation: 21