How to customize your aerial screensaver on Apple TV

The Apple TV 4K is one of the best streaming boxes available, capable of delivering the best quality picture, with every streaming service under the sun and plenty of other apps and games to take advantage of. One of my favorite features, though, has nothing to do with streaming movies or TV shows — rather, it’s Apple’s suite of Aerial screensavers.

Whenever you pause something you’re watching for a while, or idle on the menu for too long, the Apple TV will start up a screensaver, and the main built-in screensavers are the so-called Aerials. These are 4K flyover videos from gorgeous locales around the world. From the comfort of your living room, you can take in views of cities like New York and Dubai, or incredible landscapes like the African savannah and Yosemite National Park. There are also undersea videos of coral reefs and Palau jellyfish for those longing for a dive into the ocean.

While Apple also allows Apple TV owners to use their personal photo library to create slideshow screensavers, there’s no question Aerials are the most beautiful and dynamic way to prevent your screen from getting burn-in from static images.

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Aerial views

Setting up Apple TV screensavers

Apple / Pocket-lint

While Aerials are usually the default screensaver on the Apple TV 4K, users might still need to select them specifically or adjust settings to show the desired videos.

Here’s how to set up Aerial screensavers:

1. Go to Settings on Apple TV.
2. Go to Screen Saver, then Aerials.
   • Select which categories of Aerials to display from the list of Cityscape, Earth, Underwater, and Landscape.
3. Select Download Frequency in order to set how often new Aerials videos download.

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The screensaver experience

Interacting with Aerials

Apple / Pocket-lint

Of course, users can select which screensavers to show in the settings menu, but there are other ways to interact with and engage screensavers on the Apple TV 4K right from the Home Screen, using an Apple TV remote.

Manually start a screensaver:

1. Press and hold the Back or Menu button to return to the Home screen.
2. Press the Back or Menu button twice to activate screensaver.

See where an Aerial was filmed:

1. While the Aerial screensaver is active, tap the Touch surface of the Apple TV remote.

Switch Aerial location:

1. Swipe right or left on the Apple TV remote to cycle between Aerial videos in different locales.

Switch screensaver categories (on Apple TV 4K 2nd generation or later):

1. While the screensaver is active, swipe up or press up on the clickpad.
2. Select from categories Aerials, Snoopy, Memories & Slideshows, and Portraits.

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