Live Lock Screen

A GNOME Shell extension that lets you set any video/GIF as your lock screen background.

⚠️ On recent NVIDIA drivers, prolonged lock sessions may trigger a kernel-side memory leak that can lead to system-wide OOM events or crashes. This appears to be a driver issue rather than a bug in the extension.

⚠️ If you are having issues with current version you may check out legacy branch however it is highly recommended to stick with new versions for better performance.

Design Philosophy

"Do one thing and do it well."
— Unix philosophy

This extension focuses on a single goal: playing multimedia on the lock screen.

It is designed to be simple, lightweight, and reliable.

If you're looking for more advanced lock screen or desktop customization, you may want to explore alternative extensions or check out some forks of this project.

Important notice

Up until version 4.0.0, the extension relied solely on GStreamer for video playback. Starting from that version, MPV is the main and recommended playback backend.

GStreamer remains available as a fallback for now (you can force its use in the Debug section), but the end goal is to remove it from the extension entirely.

More info about the reasoning behind this decision can be found in issue #25.

If you experience problems or bugs with MPV playback, please feel free to report them.

Features

• 🎬 Play any video and GIF file as the lock screen background
• 🔁 Loop support
• 🎨 Video scaling modes (cover, fit, stretch)
• 🔲 Transparent video support (RGBA)
• ⏸️ Automatic pause/play on suspend and wake
• 🌌 Configurable fade-in animation
• 🖥️ Multi-monitor support
• 🌫️ Blur effect with adjustable radius and brightness
• 🎞️ Configurable frame rate (1–120 FPS)
• 🔊 Optional audio output with volume control and fade-in/out
• 🔑 Interactive behavior on password prompt (blur/brightness change, video pause, grayscale)

Known Issues

• Possible clicking/crackling sounds when pausing/playing video with audio

Installation

Install from GNOME Extensions

⚠️ Due to the review process, the version on GNOME Extensions may lag behind the latest code in this repository.
For the newest features, it is recommended to install manually from this branch.
If you’d like to try the latest (possibly unstable) features, you can switch to the experimental branch.

Manual

1. Clone the repository:

   git clone https://github.com/nick-redwill/LiveLockScreen.git

2. Copy to your extensions folder:

   cp -r LiveLockScreen ~/.local/share/gnome-shell/extensions/live-lockscreen@nick-redwill

3. Log out and back in, then enable the extension:

   gnome-extensions enable live-lockscreen@nick-redwill

4. Open the extension preferences and select your file.

Requirements

• GNOME Shell 46+
• MPV (recommended):

  # Fedora
  sudo dnf install mpv
  
  # Ubuntu/Debian
  sudo apt install mpv
  
  # Arch
  sudo pacman -S mpv

or alternatively:

• GStreamer with good/bad plugins:

    # Fedora
    sudo dnf install gstreamer1-plugins-good gstreamer1-plugins-bad-free gstreamer1-plugins-ugly gstreamer1-plugins-bad-free-extras
  
    # Ubuntu/Debian
    sudo apt install gstreamer1.0-plugins-good gstreamer1.0-plugins-bad gstreamer1.0-plugins-ugly
  
    # Arch
    sudo pacman -S gst-plugins-good gst-plugins-bad gst-plugins-ugly

• GStreamer GTK4 video sink (gtk4paintablesink):

    # Fedora
    sudo dnf install gstreamer1-plugin-gtk4
  
    # Ubuntu 24.10+ / Debian (newer)
    sudo apt install gstreamer1.0-gtk4
  
    # Ubuntu 24.04 — not available as a package.
    # Either build from source or download from launchpad
  
    # Arch
    sudo pacman -S gst-plugin-gtk4

Support

If you enjoy this extension, consider buying me a tea 🍵 (I’m not really a coffee person :D)

License

AGPL-3.0