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Choosing Cameras

Click a camera's picture in the menu bar panel, or choose one in Settings ▸ Displays. To see your normal desktop picture again, click the camera showing now again in the panel - or choose Your Wallpaper in Settings ▸ Displays. PanoPaper never changes your wallpaper: it plays the video in front of it, below your desktop icons and widgets, so turning the camera off, 'Hide Cameras' and quitting always bring it back exactly as it was. With only one camera, PanoPaper chooses it by itself, and clicking its picture does not turn it off - use 'Hide Cameras' or Your Wallpaper instead.

All Cameras

Choose All Cameras to see every camera at once, in a grid that always fits the display. PanoPaper works out the grid from how many cameras you have and the display's shape: six cameras on a widescreen display make three across and two down. A last row with fewer cameras shares the whole width, so no space is left empty. The cameras come in the same order as in the menu bar panel. With just one camera, All Cameras is not offered: it would only show that one. A display set to All Cameras shows that camera on its own, with its audio.

With two or more NVRs, a grid can also show just one NVR's cameras: choose All Cameras under that NVR's tab in the menu bar panel, or All NVR Cameras in Settings ▸ Displays. Under the All tab, it shows every NVR's cameras.

On a clear desktop, the key left of 1 (`, or § on many European keyboards) switches the display under the pointer to All Cameras, and pressed again back to the camera before (in the Mac App Store edition, with Command) - see Desktop Keys.

• Each camera starts with its own view on this display, without zoom. To choose which part of it shows in its tile, drag its picture in the preview in Settings ▸ Displays; that place belongs to the grid. 360° cameras show their flattened view, and dragging turns it.
• Fill or whole pictures: by default the pictures fill the grid edge to edge, trimming their sides a little. In Settings ▸ Displays, Pictures ▸ Show whole pictures shows each picture complete instead, with your wallpaper around it - black in Full Screen. Dim and Fade darken that wallpaper just as they darken the video.
• When a camera sees someone, a line in your accent color sweeps around its tile like a radar beam, fading toward its tail, with the outlines inside. With Reduce Motion on, a still frame in that color marks the tile instead.
• All Cameras plays no audio: several microphones at once would just be noise.
• Quality: by default every camera streams at its best. To go easier on your network and your NVR, choose Quality ▸ Automatic in Settings ▸ Displays: each camera then uses the smallest stream that fills its tile.

In the Web Edition, like a camera, All Cameras is for the Space you are looking at.

A launchpad for your cameras

All Cameras is also a launchpad. While its grid shows on a clear desktop or in Full Screen, each tile shows the camera's name and the key that switches to it - 1 to 9 (Command-1 … on a clear desktop in the Mac App Store edition) - at the bottom of the picture, or at its top in the grid's bottom row, clear of the Dock. Press it, or click the tile in Full Screen, and that camera becomes the desktop's camera, just as if you had chosen it in the menu bar panel. The key left of 1 brings the grid back.

A camera for each Space

In the Web Edition, a camera you choose is for the Space you are looking at. Every Space - on every display - keeps its own camera, and a Space without one shows your normal wallpaper. Switch Spaces and the video slides in with its Space.

So you can keep the driveway on one desktop and the back yard on the next, and a Space for focused work with no video at all.

When you remove a Space in Mission Control, PanoPaper forgets its camera.

In the free version

After the free trial, without PanoPaper Pro, you choose cameras just the same - for every display and Space, All Cameras too - and “UNLICENSED” shows across them. See The free version.

A camera for each display

In the App Store Edition, each display shows one camera on all of its Spaces.

Several displays

Each display has its own camera; pick the display at the top of the menu bar panel, then its camera. The panel starts with the display whose menu bar you clicked. Two displays can show the same camera; at the same quality, PanoPaper fetches its video only once.

A display remembers its cameras while it is disconnected: plug it in again and the video is back.

Stream quality

UniFi Protect sends each camera's video in up to three qualities. Choose one for each display in Settings ▸ Displays ▸ Quality: High (the default), Medium or Low, each with the resolution this camera sends. Quality is per display and applies to all of its Spaces.

High looks best on a large display. A lower quality uses less of your network and your Mac. On some cameras, Low is not the smallest of the three - check the resolutions.

Video encoding

PanoPaper plays every encoding UniFi Protect offers under Recording Manager ▸ Encoding: Standard, Enhanced and Advanced (AV1). Macs with M3 or later decode Advanced in hardware; Macs with M1 or M2, and Intel-based Macs, use PanoPaper's built-in software decoder.

Each camera's view is remembered

How you zoomed and moved a camera's picture - and for a 360° camera how it looks around - is kept for that camera, on that display (in the Web Edition: on that Space). Switch to another camera and back, and it looks the way you left it. See Zooming and Looking Around.

Mission Control

Mission Control draws each Space with your normal wallpaper, not the video. That is macOS: the video is back as soon as you pick a Space.

When the video pauses

PanoPaper only streams what someone can see. While your displays are asleep, the screen is locked, the screen saver runs, or another user is using the Mac, the video stops and the last picture stays. It picks up again when you come back.

A Space you leave keeps its video running for 20 seconds, so a quick look elsewhere costs nothing; after that it keeps its last picture until you return. Behind windows the video plays at 15 frames per second - see Behind Windows.

Messages on the wallpaper

When you choose a camera, a box on its screen names it, with "Connecting…" under the name until its picture shows. While the video cannot show, a short message on the wallpaper says why:

• "Reconnecting to camera…" - the video was interrupted; the line below says why. PanoPaper keeps trying on its own.
• "Waiting for NVR…" - PanoPaper is signing in to the camera's NVR.
• "Sign in to NVR in Settings to show this camera." - the NVR is not signed in, or signing in failed. Settings ▸ Cameras shows why - see Signing In to an NVR.
• "This camera is no longer on NVR." - it was removed from UniFi Protect. Choose another camera.
• "Connecting to camera…" - PanoPaper is signing in to a camera without an NVR.
• "Sign in to camera in Settings ▸ Cameras to show it." - that camera is not signed in, or signing in failed. Settings ▸ Cameras shows why.
• "Can't connect to camera" - the camera refused the user name or password while showing its video. Sign in to it again in Settings ▸ Cameras.

When you remove an NVR in Settings, displays and Spaces that showed its cameras go back to your normal wallpaper.