You Can Literally Make Your Mac Desktop Rain

There is magic in the early days of any technology that gets lost as it becomes more popular. The Mac is a great example of this: when Mac OS was still struggling to keep up with Microsoft and Windows, it was a sandbox of fun ideas that didn’t really help you get any work done, but made using your Mac even more rewarding. fun. This app brings back that magic because all it does is make it rain on your Mac desktop. Literally.

The lo-rain app came to us from the developer lo.cafe , who first posted about his creation on Reddit . Their app is simple: once downloaded, lo-rain adds digital rain to your Mac. This is, in fact, so. It’s useless but aesthetically pleasing, adding a very chill vibe to everything you do on your Mac.

However, the best part is how customizable it is. You can control the intensity of the rain, speed, color, opacity, angle, number of frames per second, as well as the number of raindrops that appear per second. For myself, I kept the default color but increased the opacity, added more raindrops per second, and increased the frame rate to 60 to match my Mac’s refresh rate. You can also choose to display rain splashes as they fall on the dock or on the bottom of the screen in real time. By default, you’ll see splash effects on the dock, but selecting this option causes the app to use more CPU to render the effect as each raindrop hits the dock.

There is also an option to add fireflies if you like. You can add up to 20 at a time, change their color (yellow by default, of course), how high they fly, and how fast they fly. If you’re looking for a “summer night” feel on your Mac, this isn’t a bad option to experiment with.

Lo-rain is not some productivity app or utility that will change the way you use your Mac. It just brings downpour to your desktop. At $8, it’s a little steep, but then again, it does what most apps don’t do these days: make a fun Mac app just for the sake of it. If you’re curious but not committed to the high price, try the 15-minute trial. Enough time to fiddle around with all the lo.rain settings to find the right combination for your mood. Then turn on the lo-fi playlist and enjoy the good mood.