Diwali decorations for your Mac

By Kshitij Koranne, 8 October 2026

The house gets diyas, lights and rangoli. The laptop you sit in front of all day usually gets nothing. Here are a few small ways to bring some of the festival to your Mac this year. In 2026, Lakshmi Puja falls on Sunday, 8 November.

Use your own rangoli as wallpaper

Generic Diwali wallpapers are everywhere, but a photo of your own rangoli, your own row of diyas or your own balcony lights means far more. Take it from directly above or straight on, in the evening when the lamps are lit, and leave some empty space around the design so your desktop icons stay readable.

To set it: open System Settings, click Wallpaper, choose Add Photo, and pick the picture. Or select it in the Photos app, click Share and choose Set Wallpaper.

Make a Diwali album for the Photos widget

Put a handful of photos in an album called "Diwali": last year's puja, the family in new clothes, the sweets box before it was raided. Then Control-click the desktop, choose Edit Widgets, drag the Photos widget out and set it to that album. Each time you glance at the desktop, you'll see a different moment.

Hang diyas across your desktop

Picture-Line, the app I make, hangs your photos on a string across the desktop. With the unlock, it decorates the string for Diwali by itself: little clay diyas hang between your photos, their flames flicker, and they glow warmer once the fairy lights come on at sunset. They arrive a few days before Lakshmi Puja and pack themselves away a couple of days after. You don't have to remember a thing.

You can try the diyas right now on the home page: tap Diwali diyas under the string. If you'd like them up before the dates, open Picture-Line's Settings, go to Moments, and choose Diwali diyas under Festivals.

Clip up the people you're celebrating with

Diwali is about who's around the diya as much as the diya itself. If family are far away this year, hang their photos on the string with a caption in a handwritten font. A grandparent's blessing on the back of a photo, or the date of the first Diwali in a new home, is the kind of small thing you'll be glad to find again next year.

Share it with family

Once the string looks right, choose Share My String… from the Picture-Line menu bar icon. It saves a picture of your decorated desktop that you can send on the family group chat, or post on X with #PictureLine.

Later in the year

The same idea works for other days that matter. Picture-Line also brings colour puffs for Holi and stars with snow that settles on the string at Christmas, and it can make a photo glow on someone's birthday.

Happy Diwali.