What You Need to Do On Flickr

Begin by opening your web browser and making your way to Flickr. Sign in the way that you normally would. Once you are signed in, you will see a button on the toolbar near the top of the screen. Find the word “You” in this menu and click on it. This will take you to your photostream, a listing of all of the photos you have ever posted to Flickr.

At the top of this screen, you will see a URL. This is the custom URL for your stream. Depending on your settings, this may, or may not include your user name. Highlight the URL and then copy it.

You may have noticed that this is not a RSS feed URL right now, and you cannot use it the way that it is right now. No worries, we will fix that in the next step.

Turning Your URL into An RSS Feed

The easiest way to turn your Flickr URL into a RSS feed is with a conversion tool. Luckily a few have been created specifically for Flickr. In this case we are going to use the BIG Flickr Feed tool, which you can find at http://www.bigflickrfeed.com/. Once you are on the site, you can paste your URL into the box, before you click on the “Go” button, which will create your RSS feed. You need to look at the radio button options above the box. Your choices are “Feed my most interesting photos” or “Feed my latest photos”, the most interesting photos is selected by default. Make your selection and then click on “Go”.

You will now be presented with an RSS feed URL. Copy it.

Setting Up The Screen Saver

Now you need to get to the screen saver settings. First, open System Preferences, then click on Desktop & Screen Saver and select Screen Saver from the two tabs at the top.

Here you will see a plus sign. Click on this to add a new screen saver option. This will present you with a pop up menu. Choose “Add RSS Feed” from the options that appear.

A pop up box will appear on the screen. Paste the URL into this box and click on “OK”. Be sure that you pasted the new RSS feed URL and not the original URL for the Flickr photostream into this box. The feed will be validated by the program. Once this is done, you will see the option in your list of screensavers. All you need to do is click on it to select this feed as your new screen saver.

There you have it, one screensaver based on your Flickr’s photos. Image credit: Zanastardust