Turn your Windows desktop into a tiny ecosystem.
Flies chase your cursor, spiders escape on silk, and a green turtle swims among 12 fish species. Switch between Forest and Ocean, across your monitors or as a native Windows screen saver.
Download DesktopLife v0.5.0 · 简体中文 · All releases
Windows 10/11 x64 · 26 creature types across two scenes · Realistic and cute styles · Multi-monitor · Portable
New in v0.5.0: Forest / Ocean scenes, a cursor-following turtle and 12 fish species, improved spider silk, and redesigned bilingual settings. The main app now includes screen saver preview, configuration and Windows setup. Release notes.
Recommended: download the DesktopLife Portable ZIP. It includes both desktop pets and screen saver functionality. v0.5.0 is a stable release distributed as one application package. Screen saver guide.
DesktopLife v0.5.0 is a stable release. If it made your desktop more alive—or slightly worse—⭐ star the repository and tell us which creature should arrive next.
DesktopLife is both a Windows desktop pet app and a native .scr screen saver. Choose realistic insects, cute companions, or a mix of both:
Fly · Cockroach · Ant · Caterpillar · Ladybug · Ground beetle · Earwig · Silverfish · Cricket · Grasshopper · Mantis · Stick insect · Spider
Ocean adds Green turtle · Clownfish · Blue tang · Yellow tang · Butterflyfish · Emperor angelfish · Lionfish · Pufferfish · Seahorse · Mandarin fish · Royal gramma · Moorish idol · Six-line wrasse. Ocean behavior and sizes.
| Feature | What happens |
|---|---|
| Cursor-aware fly | A fly darts around your pointer. Left-click to choose a landing spot; it lands, grooms for three seconds, then takes off again. |
| Reactive crawlers | Roaming insects turn, pause and escape when the cursor gets too close. |
| Ocean companions | The turtle follows your cursor; click to send it to a spot where it withdraws into its shell for three seconds. Fish swim head-first with animated fins and tails. |
| Species-specific motion | Crickets and grasshoppers jump. Ladybugs open their wings, take off and land. |
| Realistic or cute | Switch the visual style without resetting populations, sizes or positions. |
| True multi-monitor movement | Creatures cross the edges where monitors touch, including stacked, offset and negative-coordinate layouts. |
| Per-species controls | Forest and Ocean keep separate populations and size ranges. Set a species to zero to hide it. Each scene has one fixed cursor companion. |
| Desktop pets | Screen saver | |
|---|---|---|
| Best for | Creatures that stay with you while you work | An animated ecosystem while the PC is idle |
| Interaction | Mouse-following fly or turtle, cursor reactions, pause/resume hotkeys | Autonomous movement; mouse or keyboard exits |
| Display | Transparent overlay across your desktop | Native Windows .scr with dark or light background |
Both modes support Windows 10/11 x64, include the .NET runtime, and keep their settings separate. No SDK, Visual Studio or separate .NET installation is required.
- Download the DesktopLife Portable ZIP above.
- Extract the entire ZIP into a folder.
- Double-click
Start-DesktopLife.cmd. - On Creatures, choose Forest / Ocean, adjust counts and sizes, then save. Use Preferences for style and hotkeys.
Closing the settings window keeps DesktopLife running in the system tray. Right-click the tray icon and choose Exit to stop it.
- In the main app, open Screen saver and configure its scene, dark/light background, style and populations.
- Preview it immediately; mouse or keyboard input exits.
- Open Windows screen saver settings, select DesktopLife, choose an idle timeout and click Apply.
The app prepares a persistent screen saver copy under %LocalAppData%\DesktopLife\ScreenSaver. Windows can start it even after the desktop app exits. After upgrading, repeat Windows setup to select the new copy. Full guide.
| Main app | Screen saver configuration |
|---|---|
 |
 |
Both windows support English and Simplified Chinese, resizing and persistent bottom actions. Screen saver settings remain separate from desktop settings.
GitHub's automatically generated Source code archives contain project files, not the ready-to-run Windows app. Download the Portable package above.
| Realistic insects | Cute insects |
|---|---|
 |
 |
Realistic mode combines generated macro-style body textures with program-driven legs, antennae and wings. The assets are illustrations, not documentary photographs. Cute mode gives every species a distinct simplified appearance. Both styles are available in desktop and screen saver modes.
This recording shows the earlier settings layout; the current v0.5.0 interface is shown above.
- Pause everything:
Ctrl+Alt+P - Resume everything:
Ctrl+Alt+S - Change shortcuts: open settings and edit the Global hotkeys section
- Change language: switch between English and Simplified Chinese in settings
- Change populations or sizes: save the Insect settings; existing creatures keep their positions where possible
- Quit: right-click the DesktopLife tray icon and select Exit
The shortcuts work only while DesktopLife is running. The app allows one instance at a time.
Yes. Every monitor shares one configured population. Crawlers cross only where display edges actually touch; gaps and corner-only connections are not treated as paths. Adding, removing or rearranging a display does not multiply the number of creatures.
Desktop mode includes an optional capture-exclusion setting, disabled by default. It uses Windows WDA_EXCLUDEFROMCAPTURE on Windows 10 version 2004 or newer. Support depends on the capture tool, so it cannot guarantee exclusion from every recorder or monitoring product. The tray icon and process remain visible.
Desktop settings are stored under %AppData%\DesktopLife. The desktop app and screen saver keep separate configuration files.
v0.5.0 is a stable release. Animation feedback and compatibility reports are especially useful—please include your Windows version and monitor arrangement when reporting a problem.
DesktopLife is built with C# / .NET 10 / WPF / Win32. Install the .NET SDK version compatible with global.json, then run these commands on Windows:
git clone https://github.com/JonGates/DesktopLife.git
cd DesktopLife
dotnet build DesktopLife.sln
dotnet test DesktopLife.sln
dotnet run --project src/DesktopLife.App -- --settingsCreate a self-contained Windows x64 package:
powershell -ExecutionPolicy Bypass -File scripts/Package-Portable.ps1 -Version 0.5.0For implementation details, packaging commands and diagnostics, see the development and packaging guide. Motion and size behavior are documented in locomotion and species and proportions.
Found a bug, have a ridiculous creature idea, or tested an unusual monitor layout? Open an issue.
When reporting a problem, include:
- Windows version
- DesktopLife version
- Monitor arrangement and scaling
- Steps to reproduce the behavior
If DesktopLife earned a permanent place on your desktop, consider giving it a ⭐.