★★★★★ · APP STORE REVIEW
“Cozy Weather App”
“Nice simulated rain effect for those days when you’re in bed working. Does not track you either so always a plus for me!”
A little rain. A little snow.
DESKTOP WEATHER APP FOR MAC
Make It Rain.
Let It Snow. Simulated weather for your Mac desktop
A little weather for your Mac.
Rain, snow, sun, leaves, and wind on your windows.
Plus little visitors called Lings™!
Download for Mac$1.99 once. No subscription.
Outside feeling.
Inside your screen.
Inside your screen.
Rain & snow is on.
Off until you ask for it.
These aren’t screenshots.
Go on. Move a window.
★★★★★
“Cozy Weather App”
“Nice simulated rain effect for those days when you’re in bed working. Does not track you either so always a plus for me!”
★★★★★
“It’s a fun app for when you want rain”
“It’s a lightweight app that adds a little rain to your day even if you live somewhere dry!”
★★★★★
“Does What It Says, And Does It Well”
“Really, is there anything better than a simple app whose only use is aesthetic joy and where it does exactly what it says it does without any hassles? This is what the $1.99 price point is all about. You don’t need it, but someone worked hard enough on it to make you want it, so why not pay them for the effort as a way to say “Nice job.””
★★★★★
“Neat execution”
“really like the rain physics , especially after minimizing the full screen apps... I hope more weather effects like snow and hail gets added on in future updates.”
★★★★★
“So cool!”
“I’m running it all the time. Please continue to deliver new features and improve the graphics :) more variability of the dripping, dripping around corners a little better, showing up behind the bar at the top on mac would be more immersive too.”
★★★★★
“Relaxing App”
“Purchased this for casual use but have found myself using it for work too for focus assistance via the visuals and especially the sound effects. The visuals are top notch & really atmospheric. How the rain streams off the window edges during heavy phases really makes it. Looking forward to future updates.”
★★★★★
“I needed this!”
“Weathering has one job and it does it vey well. At the moment, my Mac desktop is experiencing a mix of rain and snow. The rain and snow builds up on top of any open windows. When I close a window, the precipitation is no longer supported so it falls down the screen. My windows, themselves, are not affected. The whimsy that this app brings is just what I need.”
★★★★★
“Creates the vibe”
“This is awesome. Love the app, love the one-time fee, feels like a fresh air in the dark times of subscriptions. Please add more weather effects and don’t drop the development. If one day you will get tired of supporting this please consider going open-source, devs (including me) would love to keep this alive. Thank you!”
New in 1.6
Weatherling 1.6 syncs your desktop with the weather outside, adds fog and VoiceOver support, and redesigns the menu bar panel.
- Sync with Your Weather uses Apple Weather to bring the rain, snow, fog, sunlight, and wind where you are to your desktop. It is off until you turn it on, and leaves stay under your control.
- Type a city or ZIP code, or use your Mac’s approximate location. The weather is checked about every half hour, only while syncing is on and the effects are running.
- With your Mac’s location, the sync follows along when your Mac moves, so the weather changes with you on a trip.
- Invert shows the opposite: rain outside brings sunshine to your desktop, clear skies bring rain, and hot, dry days bring snow. Fog clears, and calm days turn breezy while windy days go still.
- Move a synced control or turn on Randomize and syncing pauses, so your change sticks. Resume Syncing brings your local weather straight back.
- New Fog effect, with its own slider and Random setting. While syncing, fog, haze, smoke, or dust outside brings it to your desktop.
- A redesigned menu bar panel: Weather, Extras, Advanced, Lings, and Performance cards, with every effect’s slider always in view, a Random switch beside each, and a Randomize switch that hands everything to Random at once.
- Settings adds a Help pane that walks through every part of the app, and an About pane with your version and links. General now uses the same controls as the panel.
- Performance now pairs an Automatic switch with a slider from Least Energy to Smoothest, in place of the Automatic, Energy Saver, and Smooth choices. Each display adapts on its own.
- Weatherling now works fully with VoiceOver, from the menu bar panel and Settings to collecting Lings. Turn on Collect without dragging in Settings > Accessibility to collect Lings with buttons instead of dragging; it turns on by itself with VoiceOver. Score cards now describe your collection for VoiceOver too.
- Smoother rain, Random weather that eases into each new setting and holds there before the next change, and lower energy use when only sunlight or fog is on screen.
- A refreshed app icon, and Escape now closes the menu bar panel. Your sunlight level and its Random setting are remembered after a relaunch, and in a rain and snow mix, snow now builds up on your windows whenever it is falling harder than the rain.
What is Weatherling?
Weatherling is a tiny weather system for your Mac. It is a menu bar app that makes rain fall among the windows you already have open: drops land on the top edge of a window, gather along the edges and in the corners, and find their way down the sides. It is an ambient visual effect, not a forecast app, with no radar and no seven-day outlook. You decide whether it is raining, and how hard. Or, new in 1.6, turn on Sync with Your Weather and let the weather where you live set the scene.
A passing drizzle, a proper downpour, or a quiet snowfall, set from the menu bar and then forgotten about. The weather stays click-through while you work. Optional interaction lets you pick up Lings when you feel like a break.
How the weather works
Rain falls from the top of each display and lands on whatever is exposed. Because Weatherling reads the front-to-back order of your windows, a drop can fall in front of one window and behind another, which is what makes it read as weather in the room rather than a sticker on the glass. Water that lands on a title bar travels along the top edge, pools in the corner, and runs down the side.
Turn the intensity up and the edges overflow into small waterfalls. Slide toward snow and it settles along the window tops instead. Turn it down and it is a drizzle you stop noticing, which is the setting most people end up leaving it on. The draggable windows on this page are a live web illustration of the same idea, so you can try the behavior before you install anything. As for why a quiet rain works so well, the research is in why rain on your desktop can feel calming.
The rain can have a sound as well as a picture: a looping recording of a downpour, off until you turn it on, with its own volume and no claim on whatever else is playing. The control window on this page plays the same recording, so you can hear it before you install anything.
Your weather, and a little fog.
Weatherling 1.6 is now available on the Mac App Store.
Turn on Sync with Your Weather and the rain, snow, sunlight, fog, and wind follow the conditions where you are, from Apple Weather. Invert shows the opposite, so a rainy day outside can bring sunshine in.
Fog drifts through your desktop with its own slider and Random setting. Keep it gentle, or mix it with the rest of your weather.
Every control now works with VoiceOver, and the redesigned menu bar panel keeps every weather slider within reach.
Weatherling 1.6
Weatherling 1.6
Weatherling 1.6
Weatherling 1.6
Weatherling 1.6
Weatherling 1.6
Weatherling 1.6
Weatherling 1.6
Weatherling 1.6
Weather sounds and optional Ling sounds have separate volume controls. Interaction and Ling sounds are off by default. Leave the Lings to their adventures, or turn them off for weather alone. Optional floating points show what you earn when you collect a Ling. See the full release notes for new features and fixes.
How to Make It Rain on Your Mac Desktop · How to Make It Snow on Your Mac Desktop
More on the blog: Weatherling 1.4 is here: autumn leaves and new Lings · Weatherling 1.3 is here: snow and a little more company · Weatherling 1.2 is out! Meet Dan the Ling · Weatherling Reached #13, Then #8, in Mac App Store Utilities
What you need
- macOS 14.0 or later. Sonoma, Sequoia and Tahoe are all supported, on both Apple silicon and Intel Macs.
- No screen access. Weatherling never asks for Screen Recording or Accessibility. It reads the window positions macOS already shares with every app, never their contents. How it works without Screen Recording.
- Sandboxed, with click-through weather. It runs in Apple's App Sandbox and does not modify other apps. Lings respond to your mouse only when you turn on Interactive.
- Every display, or just the ones you pick. Each active display gets its own overlay, and you can leave the weather off on the screens you would rather keep clear.
- $1.99 once, on the Mac App Store. No subscription and no in-app purchases. Get Weatherling and the App Store installs it and keeps it up to date.
Questions people ask
How do I get rain or snow on my Mac desktop?
Install Weatherling from the Mac App Store and open it. Its icon appears in the menu bar: click it, turn the weather on, and set the intensity, wind, and depth. Rain or snow starts falling among your open windows right away, with no Screen Recording or Accessibility permission to grant.
Is it a screensaver or a wallpaper?
Neither. A screensaver takes over the screen when you stop working, and a live wallpaper sits behind every window. Weatherling draws on a transparent layer among your windows while you keep working, so rain lands on the ones in front and passes behind the ones further back.
Can I still click on things?
Yes. The rain and snow are click-through, so you can keep clicking, typing, and dragging as usual. Lings are click-through too unless you turn on the optional Interactive setting.
Does it work with more than one display, and with Spaces?
Each display gets its own weather, and you can switch it off on the ones you want to keep clear. The weather follows you to every Space.
What about full-screen apps?
By default the weather steps aside on a display while an app is full screen, so a film or a presentation stays clear. If you would rather it kept falling there, turn on Fall over full-screen apps in Settings.
Can I just watch the Lings?
Yes. Interaction is off by default, so you can leave the Lings to their own adventures. You can also turn Lings off in Settings or the menu bar for rain alone.
Does my Ling score go online?
No. Your score and collection stay on this Mac. Sharing is your choice: Share My Score creates a card locally for you to share through another app or website. There is no account or online leaderboard.
Will it drain my battery?
It is built to be light. At default settings it averaged about 3 to 4% of one CPU core in my latest measured run. With Automatic on under Performance, it lowers its frame rate on battery, in Low Power Mode, or when the Mac is running hot, uses even less when only sunlight or fog is showing, and stops drawing entirely while the Mac or its displays are asleep. You can also turn Automatic off and move the slider toward Least Energy. My performance measurements explain the CPU and memory costs I have observed, and why I do not yet claim a battery-life figure.
Can it follow the weather outside?
Only if you want it to. Weatherling is an ambient effect, not a forecast, so out of the box it rains when you want it to, as hard as you want, whatever it is doing outside. New in 1.6, Sync with Your Weather follows the rain, snow, fog, sunlight, and wind where you are, using Apple Weather. It is off until you turn it on. Type a city or ZIP code, or use your Mac’s approximate location. Invert turns it around, so a grey day outside brings sunshine to your desktop.