Live and animated wallpapers on a Googlebook

Last updated: October 2026

Googlebook is Google’s new laptop line, built on the Android stack with ChromeOS desktop foundations. Because it runs Android, apps don’t need a separate build — Wallpaper Reactor is the same Android app you’d put on a phone, and you get it from Google Play.

Before anything else, a straight account of where we stand. We haven’t tested Wallpaper Reactor on a real Googlebook. What we have run is an Android desktop-mode emulator. Wallpaper Reactor isn’t certified by Google for Googlebook and doesn’t carry a Google Play desktop badge. We’ll say which parts below come from that emulator, and which we couldn’t check.

Install it

1. Open Google Play on your Googlebook.
2. Search for Wallpaper Reactor, or go straight to the Play listing.
3. Install, then open it.

It’s free, and browsing, downloading and setting wallpapers need no account. If you’d rather not use Play, the Android APK is on the releases page.

Set a wallpaper

It’s the same flow as on any Android device, and the Android walkthrough has screenshots of each step.

1. Open Browse and pick a wallpaper. Search, Sort and the Type, Colors and Tags filters narrow the list.
2. Open it and choose Download. The files stay on your device.
3. Choose Set wallpaper.
4. Android opens its own live wallpaper screen for Wallpaper Reactor. Confirm it there — Android only runs a live wallpaper that you confirm yourself. It may ask whether it’s for the home screen, the lock screen or both.

After Wallpaper Reactor is your live wallpaper, setting another one in the app switches it without the Android screen. If you back out of the Android screen without confirming, nothing is set and the app shows no error — just choose Set wallpaper again.

The part we couldn’t confirm

Here is the honest caveat. On Android 16 (QPR3) and newer, and on Android 17, Android blocks third-party live wallpapers on a connected external display — a monitor, or desktop mode. That’s an Android platform policy, not something the app controls, and we explain it in Do live wallpapers work on Android Desktop Mode?.

A Googlebook is a laptop with its own screen, not a phone plugged into a monitor, so that case may not apply to it. But we don’t know. In our emulator pass we confirmed the system reports live wallpaper support and that Wallpaper Reactor’s wallpaper service is registered, and we did not apply a wallpaper, so we have not seen one render on a desktop display. If you try it on a Googlebook, whether the animated wallpaper shows behind your windows is exactly the thing we’d like to hear about.

What it can run

Wallpaper Reactor isn’t just video loops. The wallpapers it runs include:

• Video: MP4 and WebM.
• Shaders: GLSL, drawn live.
• Rive animations: vector animations, drawn from shapes rather than stored as pixels.
• Scenes and interactive 3D built in Godot.
• Websites: HTML pages as wallpapers.

As of 0.30.0 you can upload scenes, interactive 3D (Godot) and website wallpapers. You can also use your own file without an account through Quick Wallpaper on the Create tab: pick a file and it’s applied. There’s more on that in setting any video as a live wallpaper.

Interactive wallpapers (Scenes and Godot) respond to touch and mouse input. Touch Interaction in Settings → Wallpaper Settings turns that off.

Using the app in a desktop window

Wallpaper Reactor on Android desktop mode runs in a window you can resize and maximize. In our emulator pass:

• Resizing and maximizing worked. The layout adjusts live as the window changes size, with no letterboxing and no compatibility mode.
• A sensible first window. The app opens at 1100 × 720 dp rather than phone-sized.
• Mouse: hovering a card shows its “…” button, right-clicking a card opens a menu (Favorite, Preview, Set as wallpaper, Copy link), and the carousels have arrow buttons.
• Keyboard: Tab and the arrow keys move focus, with a visible focus ring.
• Drag and drop: in 0.30.0 you can drop a file on the window in desktop mode, and files you open with or share to Wallpaper Reactor are picked up directly.
• Full screen: F11 toggles fullscreen on Android 15 and later.

There are keyboard shortcuts for the whole app too. On Android and ChromeOS, the modifier is Ctrl:

Press ? in the app for the full list.

Two caveats on that emulator pass. Hover, right-click, wheel and Tab/arrow-key events were injected into the app’s web view rather than sent through Android’s own input system, so they test the app’s handling and not the operating system’s. And the shortcuts and drag-and-drop landed in 0.30.0, after that pass. Several are covered by automated tests; none has been tried on a Googlebook.

Battery and performance

A laptop is a battery you carry around, so this matters more here than on a desktop PC. Performance modes are free for everyone as of 0.30.0. They set the frame rate cap and the resolution a wallpaper renders at, under Settings → Wallpaper Settings:

Battery Saver asks for far less work than Max Quality, so it’s the one to reach for when you’re away from a charger. Changes take effect on the running wallpaper.

Pause on Low Power Mode is on by default: the wallpaper pauses while the system’s low power or battery saver mode is on. We haven’t checked how that interacts with Googlebook’s own power settings.

For the old-phone version of this advice, see live wallpapers on an old or cheap Android phone.

Try it on your Googlebook

Free from Google Play, with no account needed. Tell us what you see.

Download Wallpaper Reactor