Frequently Asked Questions
Other Views, Europe, & Africa?
As new sources come online, they’ll be added to the app as fast as possible.
As of yet, though, I haven’t been able to find an open and available data source for Europe and/or Africa with the image quality and refresh frequency needed.
If and when one is available, it’ll be in the app.
Help & Troubleshooting
Opening the Downlink Window, Changing Views
Open up the Downlink window by clicking the satellite dish icon in your Mac menu bar (top right, near the wifi, clock, etc). From there, the window will open up and you can choose what view to show.
Quitting Downlink
Open up the Downlink window, and then quit the app by clicking the settings icon in the bottom right and selecting “Quit Downlink.” That will stop the app from updating your background, and you can go back to how things were before. Head into System Preferences to choose a desktop background as you would normally from there.
Open at Login
The best way to achieve that is to head into System Preferences > Users & Groups > Login Items, and add Downlink to that list of apps. That way it will launch whenever you log into your machine.
Different Views on Different Displays
Open up the Downlink window on the display you would like to change, and choose a view. That’s it!
Different Views on Different Spaces
Unfortunately, Apple gives third party developers like myself no access to Spaces whatsoever. All we can detect is when the active Space changes, but that’s all. I’ll keep my eyes peeled in the future for Spaces support from Apple, but it doesn’t seem likely to change.
You can, however, have different views on different displays!
Is Downlink Caching Hundreds of Gigabytes of Images?
Some users have noticed that their machine is caching an incredible amount of old desktop images in a private folder, named com.apple.desktoppicture, even though this site says that Downlink stores no old data.
That folder is an Apple system folder which Downlink unfortunately has no control over. However, Apple says that things are working as designed there, and those cached images will be cleared when the system determines it needs the space.
Whether that’s happening correctly or not is another question. Some users have said that it is cleared with a reboot, but it’s totally safe to clear out that folder as often as you’d like, too!
Sorry about that. I’ll keep an eye out for any fix I can implement.
Something else?
If your question or issue was not addressed above, send me a tweet or write me an email.