Hello Screensaver on Mac: How to Enable it?

News • Apr 22, 2021

The new iMacs announced in the “Spring Loaded” event will include a special screen saver.

That new screensaver, called Hello, is pretty sweet indeed. It displays the word “hello”, as it was written on the original Macintosh during its unveiling in late 1983.The animated and cursive design of the text, slowing bouncing around the screen atop a colorful backdrop.

The “hello” is significant for Apple, as it invites everyone to witness the new phase and look of Apple from Spring Loaded, which now has taken a step forward from minimalist and simple, to pop and bright colors.

“Hello” screen saver is available in macOS Big Sur 11.3 RC, and can run on any M1 Mac (or Intel Mac) with a little bit of finessing.

Install Hello Screensaver

Open Finder and search for the System folder
Choose Library
Choose Screen Savers
Choose the “Hello. saver” file to use, double-click to toggle it on, and have it installed on the Mac.
After installation, users can now access this via the System Preferences Method below.

Activate Hello Screensaver

Alternatively, users can access and assign this screen saver by directly toggling it using System Preferences after installing it on the desktop. To do this:

Head to Settings/ System Preferences
Choose Desktop and Screen Saver
Choose Screen Saver and users can now choose the “hello” which is a system added theme for the display.
Users can also customize the screen saver start time from the default 20 minutes, to longer or shorter times.

Note: It turns out that the same process for adding the Hello screen saver to an M1 Mac works on an Intel-based Mac running the macOS 11.3 beta too.

Hello Screen Saver Options

The Hello screen saver includes three different options: Theme, Languages, and Match System Appearance.

Themes: The Hello screen saver cycles through various colors, and there are several themes to choose from including “Soft Tones”, “Spectrum”, and “Minimal”. Soft Tones uses the pastel colors introduced with the new iMacs and matching colored text, while Spectrum uses more saturated shades with lighter text. Finally, ‘Minimal’ offers a more toned down monochromatic screen saver with gray, black, and white colours in the mix.

Languages: By default, the screen saver will display “hello” in multiple languages, such as Japanese, Croatian, and Spanish, but you can force it to use only your native language by toggling off Show “hello” in all languages in the Screen Saver Options.

Match system appearance: A “match system appearance” toggle is also available for use to follow your light or dark mode settings.