How to remove downloaded aerial wallpapers?

[Mr.Mozi]

The recently introduced aerial dynamic wallpapers with macOS Sonoma are cool but the problem is that they take HUGE amount of disk space (almost 10GB). How can I remove them?

I've tried:
- Right click, ctrl click, tap and hold on the thumbnail in sys settings
- Searching the library folder for videos in HEVC or MPEG formats
- Looked up the Desktop Wallpapers folder in the Library

Still no luck...

 

[russell_314]

The recently introduced aerial dynamic wallpapers with macOS Sonoma are cool but the problem is that they take HUGE amount of disk space (almost 10GB). How can I remove them?

I've tried:
- Right click, ctrl click, tap and hold on the thumbnail in sys settings
- Searching the library folder for videos in HEVC or MPEG formats
- Looked up the Desktop Wallpapers folder in the Library

Still no luck...

I don't think you can remove system files. Maybe if you disable SIP but that's opening another can of worms

 

[bogdanw]

The downloaded wallpapers are not system files, they can be deleted.

Be sure to select another wallpaper, as you can’t delete one that is in use, right-click on the one you want to delete and then choose remove download.

The support page is currently for Ventura https://support.apple.com/guide/mac-help/choose-your-desktop-picture-mchlp3013/mac

 

[Mr.Mozi]

I

The downloaded wallpapers are not system files, they can be deleted.

Be sure to select another wallpaper, as you can’t delete one that is in use, right-click on the one you want to delete and then choose remove download.

The support page is currently for Ventura https://support.apple.com/guide/mac-help/choose-your-desktop-picture-mchlp3013/mac

In system settings? Right-click brings nothing up.
Might be a bug since the dynamic/light/dark settings doesn't seem to work neither

 

[wern-apfel]

You can find the HEVC videos at /Library/Application Support/com.apple.idleassetsd/Customer
It probably depends on your screen resolution, 2k 4k....
In my case /Library/Application Support/com.apple.idleassetsd/Customer/4KSDR240FPS/

 

[Heat_Fan89]

You can find the HEVC videos at /Library/Application Support/com.apple.idleassetsd/Customer
It probably depends on your screen resolution, 2k 4k....
In my case /Library/Application Support/com.apple.idleassetsd/Customer/4KSDR240FPS/

Thanks, that worked for me. For some reason the videos were not in 4K so I deleted them.

 

[soundsgoodtome]

A Reddit user in this thread quotes arstechnica: "The wallpapers are not counted in the Finder's calculation of used space and will be purged the moment you need the space."

https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2023/09/macos-14-sonoma-the-ars-technica-review/8/#h2

 

[Love-hate 🍏 relationship]

i deleted them all manually by going in /Library/Application Support/com.apple.idleassetsd

half an hour later, i see they all got redownloaded again, lol , idk what to do

 

[bogdanw]

This is crazy, Apple turned a bug into a “feature”.
In my previous comment I was mentioning the Ventura documentation:
“To delete a downloaded picture, Control-click its thumbnail, then choose Remove Download.”
https://support.apple.com/guide/mac-help/choose-your-desktop-picture-mchlp3013/13.0/mac/13.0
The current Sonoma documentation doesn’t mention download or how to remove a download.
https://support.apple.com/guide/mac-help/choose-your-desktop-wallpaper-mchlp3013/14.0/mac/14.0
So, rather than fixing a bug, Apple decided to delete a paragraph from the user guide.

i deleted them all manually by going in /Library/Application Support/com.apple.idleassetsd

half an hour later, i see they all got redownloaded again, lol , idk what to do

I think there is an evidence of the downloaded items stored somewhere else. I don’t have time to dig deeper, but deleting all files from com.apple.idleassetsd, TVIdleScreenSnapshotLog.plist and ~/Library/Application\ Support/com.apple.wallpaper/Store/Index.plist seems to work.

From Terminal

sudo rm -rf /Library/Application\ Support/com.apple.idleassetsd/*

sudo rm -f /Library/Application\ Support/com.apple.TVIdleScreen/TVIdleScreenSnapshotLog.plist

rm -f ~/Library/Application\ Support/com.apple.wallpaper/Store/Index.plist

and reboot.

 

[jim0266]

This is crazy, Apple turned a bug into a “feature”.
In my previous comment I was mentioning the Ventura documentation:
“To delete a downloaded picture, Control-click its thumbnail, then choose Remove Download.”
https://support.apple.com/guide/mac-help/choose-your-desktop-picture-mchlp3013/13.0/mac/13.0
The current Sonoma documentation doesn’t mention download or how to remove a download.
https://support.apple.com/guide/mac-help/choose-your-desktop-wallpaper-mchlp3013/14.0/mac/14.0
So, rather than fixing a bug, Apple decided to delete a paragraph from the user guide.


I think there is an evidence of the downloaded items stored somewhere else. I don’t have time to dig deeper, but deleting all files from com.apple.idleassetsd, TVIdleScreenSnapshotLog.plist and ~/Library/Application\ Support/com.apple.wallpaper/Store/Index.plist seems to work.

From Terminal

sudo rm -rf /Library/Application\ Support/com.apple.idleassetsd/*

sudo rm -f /Library/Application\ Support/com.apple.TVIdleScreen/TVIdleScreenSnapshotLog.plist

rm -f ~/Library/Application\ Support/com.apple.wallpaper/Store/Index.plist

and reboot.

Arggggg this did not work. The files came back after running the 3 commands and rebooting.

I wound up replacing the files with small .mov files of the same name. Seems to be working so far...

 

[bogdanw]

Arggggg this did not work. The files came back after running the 3 commands and rebooting.

I wound up replacing the files with small .mov files of the same name. Seems to be working so far...

You can lock the /Library/Application Support/com.apple.idleassetsd/Customer folder
https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/sonoma-aerial-screen-saver-freezing.2405520/post-32799473