Glyphdrift

A quiet live wallpaper for Windows

Contour maps, ASCII and minimal motion graphics drifting behind your desktop icons. One small exe. No installer, no account, no network.

Windows 10 and 11 · about 0.7 MB

Made to stay in the background

Draws on the desktop itself, under your icons and windows. An optional readability veil keeps icon labels crisp.

Under 1% CPU at the default frame rate. Pauses itself for fullscreen apps and battery saver, and says so in the tray.

Topographic drift can show the time and date in a framed box; the contour lines flow around it.

Speed, scale, frame rate and theme apply as you drag. The settings window opens by the tray so the wallpaper is your preview.

Topographic drift · Ridgelines · Isobars · Wood grain · Interference · Hillshade topo · Dune ripples

Lava lamp · Ink in water

Helix · Wire globe · Dot wave · Cubes · Sunburst · Moon

Matrix rain · Plasma · Fire · Waves · Ripples · Wind

Constellation · Flow field

The palettes of popular editor themes, plus a few terminal classics. Pick one to recolor the header.

1
Download
Grab glyphdrift.exe from the latest release. There is nothing to install.
2
Run it
The wallpaper starts behind your icons and an icon appears in the tray. Windows may warn about an unrecognized app: choose More info, then Run anyway.
3
Make it yours
Left-click the tray icon for settings. Turn on Start with Windows from the right-click menu to keep it.