New — LiveLayer 1.0 is now available on the Microsoft Store

A desktop that breathes, not just sits.

LiveLayer is a modern, minimalistic wallpaper manager with video support and customizable date widgets. Bring your own wallpapers — no bloatware, no pre-loaded content, and nothing watching you.

Download for Windows Explore features

Free forever · Windows 10 & 11 · Runs fully offline

Plays what you already own

MP4WEBMAVIMOVMKVGIFJPGPNGBMPWEBPTIFFTGA

~5 MB
Installer size: 7
Image formats: 5
Video formats

Everything a wallpaper app should be

Minimal on the outside. Capable on the inside.

Most wallpaper engines are heavyweight games in disguise. LiveLayer was built the other way: a lean, native core that plays beautiful wallpapers without slowing your PC down.

Truly lightweight

Comes with zero pre-loaded content — no bloatware eating your storage. The installer is about 5 MB, and the app stays lean while it runs.

Live video wallpapers

Set any video as your desktop background with seamless playback. Supports MP4, WEBM, AVI, MOV, and MKV.

Auto-change slideshow

Cycle through your collection automatically at your own interval. Wallpapers rotate in random order, always skipping the one you’re looking at.

Customizable date widget

A transparent date and time overlay you can drag anywhere on screen and lock in place. Pick fonts, colors, scale, alignment, and 24-hour time.

Multi-format support

Images: JPG, JPEG, PNG, BMP, WEBP, TIFF, TGA. Videos: MP4, WEBM, AVI, MOV, MKV. Plus GIF. Your wallpapers, your formats.

System tray integration

Control everything from the tray without opening the main window — toggle the date widget, stop video wallpapers, or quit. Optional auto-start on boot.

Built to be better

LiveLayer vs. the paid engines

Wallpaper Engine is a great app — but it’s tied to Steam, costs money, and runs as a heavy background process. LiveLayer does the essentials better, and the extras the paid apps skip entirely.

Feature	LiveLayerFree	Wallpaper Engine
Price	Free, open source	$4.99 (Steam)
Requires Steam client	No	Yes
Open source	Yes (AGPL-3.0)	No
Pre-loaded content	None — bring your own	Ships with a content pack
Customizable date widget	Yes	No
Runs offline, no account	Yes	Requires Steam to download
Platforms	Windows (macOS & Linux soon)	Windows only

Engineered lean

The performance of a static wallpaper. The soul of a live one.

LiveLayer is built with Tauri, so the installer is measured in megabytes, not gigabytes — and it stays lean while it runs. No bloatware, no bundled content, no background store. Just your wallpapers.

~200MB

RAM while running

Supported formats

Pre-loaded items

livelayer.json

{
  "installer": "~5 MB",
  "ram": "~200 MB while running",
  "preloaded": "none - bring your own",
  "steam": "not required",
  "account": "none"
}

About LiveLayer

LiveLayer — Free Live Wallpaper & Date Widget App for Windows

LiveLayer is a free, open-source live wallpaper and date widget app for Windows 10 and Windows 11. It turns any video, GIF, or image into a live wallpaper for your PC, then lets you place a customizable clock and date widget right on top of it. There is no Steam dependency, no account, and no pre-loaded bloatware — you bring the wallpapers you already love, and LiveLayer brings them to life.

A live wallpaper for PC, in every style

Looking for a live wallpaper for laptop, a live wallpaper 4K for PC, or a live wallpaper for PC anime scenes? LiveLayer plays them all with smooth, hardware-accelerated playback. A 4K live wallpaper keeps every detail crisp on high-resolution displays, while a lighter live wallpaper GIF is perfect for saving resources on a laptop. For a live wallpaper for laptop 4K setup, the app stays light — video wallpapers use only about 200 MB of RAM. Gamers can run a live wallpaper for PC gaming without losing frame rate, because the app rests on a native Tauri core instead of a heavyweight engine. As a live wallpaper for PC app, LiveLayer adds no background store, no companion launcher, and nothing running unless you want it. Anime fans get the best of both worlds: a live wallpaper anime clip at full quality, or an anime live wallpaper made from a looping scene. LiveLayer is a live wallpaper for PC free of cost that supports MP4, WEBM, AVI, MOV, MKV, GIF, JPG, PNG, WEBP, TIFF, and TGA, so your collection is never limited to a store.

A clock and date widget for Windows 11

Most wallpaper apps only animate your background; LiveLayer goes further with a clock and date widget that floats over any wallpaper. The date widget for Windows 11 gives you six fonts, full color control, a 0.5x to 1.5x scale slider, and alignment options, plus a 12- or 24-hour clock. It works just as well as a date widget for Windows 10, and you can drag the time and date widget anywhere on screen and lock it in place — it stays perfectly still while your live wallpaper moves beneath it. If you have been searching for a date widget download that looks native to Windows, this is it.

How to make a live wallpaper

Not sure how to make a live wallpaper from your own files? It takes about thirty seconds. Download LiveLayer, open the app, and drag any video or GIF into your wallpaper list. Select it, and your desktop comes alive instantly. There is no transcoding, no proprietary format, and no quality loss — your live wallpaper GIF or 4K video plays exactly as you created it. Set up an auto-change slideshow to rotate through your favorites at your own interval, or keep a single wallpaper running all day. Add a date widget for a finishing touch, and your setup is complete.

A live wallpaper download that is free and private

LiveLayer is a live wallpaper download you can trust. It is free forever with no in-app purchases, no subscriptions, and no hidden paywalls. The installer is about 5 MB, the app is built on a lightweight Tauri core, and it runs fully offline, so even a laptop without a discrete GPU can enjoy a live wallpaper for PC. It collects no data and is open source under the AGPL-3.0 license. Grab your live wallpaper for Windows from the Microsoft Store or GitHub — it is the date widget download and live wallpaper app in one, ready in under a minute.

Make your desktop feel alive.

Free forever. No Steam. No account. Just wallpapers, widgets, and a desktop that finally feels like yours.

Get it on Microsoft Store View on GitHub