MacOS-Shell script for changing wallpaper to BING® Picture of the day.

!BING_POTD.md

BING® Picture of the day

This is a MacOS shell script for changing wallpaper to BING® Picture of the day.

Place the shell script into: ~/Pictures/Bing and the plist into ~/Library/LaunchAgents/.

Run once:

launchd load ~/Library/LaunchAgents/com.user.bing-wallpaper.plist

Manual test it:

launchctl start com.user.bing-wallpaper

bing-wallpaper.sh

#!/bin/bash

API_URL="https://www.bing.com/HPImageArchive.aspx?format=js&idx=0&n=1"
BASE_DIR="$HOME/Pictures/Bing"
UHD_DIR="$BASE_DIR/UHD"
PORTRAIT_DIR="$BASE_DIR/Portrait"
INFO_FILE="$BASE_DIR/info.txt"
TEMP_DIR="/tmp/bing_wallpaper_$$"

RED='\033[0;31m'
NC='\033[0m'

set -e
trap 'rm -rf "$TEMP_DIR"' EXIT

mkdir -p "$UHD_DIR" "$PORTRAIT_DIR" "$TEMP_DIR"

json_data=$(curl -s "$API_URL")

urlbase=$(echo "$json_data" | grep -o '"urlbase":"[^"]*"' | head -1 | cut -d'"' -f4)
copyright=$(echo "$json_data" | grep -o '"copyright":"[^"]*"' | head -1 | cut -d'"' -f4)

filename=$(echo "$urlbase" | sed -n 's/.*OHR\.\(.*\)_DE-.*/\1/p')

if [ -z "$filename" ]; then
    echo -e "${RED}✗ Error: Could not extract filename${NC}"
    exit 1
fi

formats=("UHD" "1080x1920")
destinations=("$UHD_DIR" "$PORTRAIT_DIR")
output_files=()

for i in "${!formats[@]}"; do
    format="${formats[$i]}"
    dest_dir="${destinations[$i]}"

    download_url="http://www.bing.com${urlbase}_${format}.jpg"
    temp_jpg="$TEMP_DIR/${filename}_${format}.jpg"
    output_avif="$dest_dir/${filename}.avif"

    if curl -f -s -o "$temp_jpg" "$download_url"; then
        /opt/homebrew/bin/magick "$temp_jpg" "$output_avif" 2>/dev/null
        output_files+=("$output_avif")
    else
        echo -e "${RED}✗ Download failed: $download_url${NC}"
        exit 1
    fi
done

echo "$copyright" > "$INFO_FILE"

osascript <<EOF >/dev/null 2>&1
tell application "System Events"
    set desktopCount to count of desktops

    if desktopCount >= 1 then
        tell desktop 1
            set picture to "${output_files[1]}"
        end tell
    end if

    if desktopCount >= 2 then
        tell desktop 2
            set picture to "${output_files[0]}"
        end tell
    end if
end tell
EOF

com.user.bing-wallpaper.plist

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN" "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd">
<plist version="1.0">
<dict>
    <key>Label</key>
    <string>com.user.bing-wallpaper</string>

    <key>ProgramArguments</key>
    <array>
        <string>/bin/bash</string>
        <string>-c</string>
        <string>~/Pictures/Bing/bing-wallpaper.sh</string>
    </array>

    <key>StartCalendarInterval</key>
    <array>
        <dict>
            <key>Hour</key>
            <integer>8</integer>
            <key>Minute</key>
            <integer>0</integer>
        </dict>
        <dict>
            <key>Hour</key>
            <integer>9</integer>
            <key>Minute</key>
            <integer>0</integer>
        </dict>
        <dict>
            <key>Hour</key>
            <integer>10</integer>
            <key>Minute</key>
            <integer>0</integer>
        </dict>
        <dict>
            <key>Hour</key>
            <integer>11</integer>
            <key>Minute</key>
            <integer>0</integer>
        </dict>
    </array>
    <key>RunAtLoad</key>
    <false/>
</dict>
</plist>