Frequently asked questions
Everything about the app, Pro and your license. Didn't find your answer? Message support.
The app
BetterMacWidgets is a native macOS app that puts live-animated Liquid-Glass widgets straight onto your desktop — weather, now playing, reminders, photos, clocks, system stats and more. The widgets float freely: drag them anywhere and they settle onto an invisible snap grid. Built by the developer of MenuBarMonitor and Notchmate.
Yes. The core app is free forever — no countdown, no account, no ads. You keep the free widget collection in all of its supported sizes, drag & drop and three themes for good. Pro is an optional one-time upgrade that unlocks the rest, and you can try it free for 3 days first.
macOS 15 (Sequoia) or newer, Apple Silicon only (M1 or later). The app is tuned for Apple Silicon so the live animations cost close to nothing; Intel Macs are not supported.
25 widgets — many are live-animated, while others are intentionally still or interaction-led. Depending on the widget, there are up to six individually designed sizes, from a compact 1×1 square to a spacious 3×2 layout. Nine widget kinds support multiple desktop instances.
There are 20 built-in themes. Midnight, Graphite and Ocean are free; the other 17 unlock with Pro. Themes recolor your widgets — accent, glass tint, text. The glass itself is separate: the free Frosted look has its own 0–100% opacity slider, and the Pro Clear look removes the tile entirely so only the widget's content floats on your wallpaper.
Pro & pricing
Yes — every Pro widget, theme and animation previews live inside the app, at full size and fully animated. Open Settings and click through them; nothing is hidden behind the paywall except putting them on your desktop.
There is no free trial. Pro is a one-time purchase with a 14-day right of withdrawal, so trying it and asking for your money back is the honest version of the same thing.
Pro unlocks Custom Widgets — your own widgets, written as a small JSON file — plus nine additional built-in widgets:
- Sticky NotePRO
- System StatsPRO
- Devices (Bluetooth battery levels)PRO
- NetworkPRO
- App LauncherPRO
- Shortcut buttonsPRO
- Password GeneratorPRO
- Clipboard historyPRO
- Drop Zone (a shelf for files)PRO
Plus all 20 themes, the Clear glass look, Widget Stacks, the animated live scenes for Weather and Battery, Now Playing brand tint, and Smart Layout automation by time, foreground app or connected display. Everything in Pro is visible and previewable inside the app before you pay.
A Pro feature: drop a widget onto another of the same size and they merge into a single slot — one widget on show at a time. Hover the tile and use the ‹ › arrows to flick through; right-click offers "Show Next" and "Rotate Every" for automatic switching. Same size only — a 3×2 stacks with another 3×2, never with a 2×2; widgets that can't stack are pushed apart so nothing ever overlaps.
Yes — paid once. €12.99 for 1 Mac, €15.99 for 2 Macs, €17.99 for 3. No subscription, no recurring charges, and all future updates are included for life. After checkout you instantly receive your personal license key in the format BWG-XXXX-XXXX-XXXX-XXXX by email.
Performance & privacy
No — near-zero idle cost is a core design goal. Only widgets that are actually visible tick; panels pause completely while they are covered by other windows or a fullscreen app. In the default Balanced mode, widgets animate smoothly while you hover over them and rest otherwise, and the app honors the system's Reduce Motion setting. Measured idle CPU is effectively 0%.
BetterMacWidgets sends no telemetry, analytics or crash reports — your widget data stays on your Mac. Network access is limited to weather and location lookups, Now Playing artwork, license validation during activation, later app launches and every six hours while a key is stored, releasing the binding when you remove a license, and the Sparkle update feed. That is the complete list.
License & support
As many as the tier you bought: 1, 2 or 3 Macs. It is always the same key — enter it on each Mac, and each one takes one seat via an anonymous machine identifier. Replacing a Mac? Choose Remove License there and the seat is immediately free for the next one. If the old Mac is gone or broken, support can release its seat for you.
First check your inbox for the checkout email (search for "BWG-"). If it is gone, contact support with the email address you used for the purchase and we will resend your key.
A license key is digital content: during checkout you expressly consent to immediate delivery and acknowledge that this ends your 14-day EU right of withdrawal once the key is delivered (Section 356(5) of the German Civil Code). That is why there are, as a rule, no refunds after delivery — but because the whole app is free to use first, you can evaluate everything before buying. If something is genuinely wrong, contact support and we will find a fair solution.
The app updates itself via the open-source Sparkle framework — every update is signed and notarized. Updates are free for everyone, and Pro is a lifetime license: every future Pro widget and feature is part of your one-time purchase, with no upgrade fees.
That's by design, not a bug. All 25 widgets are managed inside BetterMacWidgets and live directly on your desktop — the app deliberately doesn't ship widgets for Apple's system gallery, because gallery widgets can't be live-animated or freely arranged the way desktop widgets can.