Support
Weatherling is made by one person, so support is me. There is no ticket queue and no bot in front of it. Write, and you get an answer from the developer.
Try this first
Most of what people write in about has a one-line answer, so it is worth a minute to check these.
- No rain at all? Open the cloud in the menu bar and check that Enabled is on and Rain Intensity is not at its lowest. Option-clicking the menu bar icon toggles the effect, which is easy to do by accident.
- Rain on some screens but not others? Displays are chosen individually under Settings, Advanced. A screen you turned off stays off when it is reconnected.
- Rain stops when a particular app is in front? That is the per-app pause rules, also under Settings, Advanced.
- Rain went quiet after a system change? Weatherling keeps drawing while macOS Reduce Motion is on, because motion is the point of the app, unless you turned that override off under Settings, Advanced, Accessibility.
- Looking for Lings? Turn on Interactive to pick up Lings™ and drop them into boxes to collect points. Interaction and Ling sounds are off by default. Watch the visits, join in, or turn Lings off and enjoy the weather. Your collection and score stay on your Mac unless you choose to share.
- Running an older Mac? Weatherling needs macOS 14.0 Sonoma or later. On anything earlier the app will not open.
New in v1.3: your collection and score
Weatherling 1.4 is now available on the Mac App Store.
Each successful box drop earns points. Some Lings and boxes are rarer than others. Settings > Lings shows your collection, counts, points, and total score. These are saved locally on this Mac.
Share My Score opens a preview card you can copy, save as a PNG, drag into a message, or share through macOS. Social buttons open a post and copy the card; paste or drag it into the post yourself. If a site does not accept it, save the image and attach it. LinkedIn and Facebook also need the score text pasted. Nothing posts automatically.
Ling sounds have their own volume and are off by default. Descriptive box labels are available under Settings > Accessibility if you prefer names as well as colors.
CPU, memory, and battery questions
In the latest measured run, on an Apple M4 Max at default settings, Weatherling averaged 2.97 to 3.75% of one CPU core and used about 375 to 391 MiB of memory. Energy Saver quality draws fewer drops at a lower frame rate, and drawing stops entirely while the Mac or its displays sleep. Battery life has not been measured yet.
My performance page explains how I benchmark Weatherling on a real desktop, the latest measurements, and what they can tell me about longer use.
Reporting a bug
Weatherling draws itself around whatever windows you happen to have open, so the most useful report tells me what was on screen. Please include:
- Your macOS version and Mac model, Apple silicon or Intel.
- The Weatherling version, shown at the top of Settings.
- How many displays were connected, and their arrangement.
- What you expected, what happened instead, and whether it repeats.
- A screen recording if the problem is something moving. It usually saves a round trip.
Feature requests
New in 1.4. Autumn leaves drift in the wind and settle on your windows. Shake a window to scatter them, watch water carry them along, and see Lings kick them up as they walk.
Releases and updates
New in 1.4: autumn leaves, separate rain, snow, and leaves controls, new Lings to discover, weather ambience, lighter rendering on smaller Macs, and fixes. Read the release notes for the full update and earlier versions.
Reaching me
What this page does not cover
Purchases and refunds are handled by Apple, not by me. Weatherling is distributed only through the Mac App Store, so anything to do with billing goes through reportaproblem.apple.com. For how the app handles data, which is to say it collects none, see the Privacy Policy, and for the licensing and warranty rules see the Terms of Use.