Looking for Paint on a Mac? Meet Paint My

How to paint on a Mac with Paint My

1. Create a canvas

   In the “New Canvas” card, pick a preset such as “Classic” or type a “Width” and “Height”. Choose a surface like “Fine Paper” and click “Create Canvas”.

2. Pick a brush

   Click a tool in the floating palette, or press its key: P for Pencil, H for Marker, E for Eraser. Click the tool again to see its other styles.

3. Choose a color

   Click one of the five color dots, or press I for the “Eyedropper” and click a color on the canvas.

4. Add shapes, fill and gradients

   Choose “Rectangle”, “Ellipse” or “Star” from the “Shapes” menu and drag; hold ⇧ for a square or circle. Click “Fill” and click a region, or drag with “Gradient”.

5. Select and transform

   Pick “Rectangle Select”, “Lasso Select” or “Magic Wand” from the “Select” menu, then press ⌘T to move, scale, rotate or flip the selection. Press Return or click “Done”.

6. Export your picture

   In the toolbar’s “Export” menu, choose “Export as PNG…” or “Export as JPEG…”. Every export is free.

Does a Mac have Paint?

No. macOS doesn’t include a dedicated paint program, which is why people search for Paint for Mac after they switch to a Mac.

Paint My is a native paint program for Mac, with its tools in the toolbar and a floating palette. Download it from the Mac App Store; there’s no account to create.

It’s free to start, and Pro gives you all 57 brush styles, no layer limit and no undo step limit. New to painting on a computer? Read our guide to digital painting software for Mac.

A simple paint app for Mac, with the tools you expect

Paint My works as a simple drawing app for Mac: each everyday tool has a single-key shortcut. Browse all 57 brush styles to see which 14 are free.

• Brushes: 12 tool families, from Pencil and Marker to Spray Can. The Eraser (E) is free in all three styles.
• Shapes (U): seven shapes, from “Rectangle” to “Star”, as “Fill”, “Stroke” or “Both”. Hold ⇧ for squares, circles and 45° lines.
• Fill (F): a bucket fill with a “Tolerance” slider.
• Gradient (G): “Linear” and “Radial”, with up to six color stops.
• Select (M, L, W): rectangle, lasso and magic wand. ⇧ adds, ⌥ subtracts.
• Eyedropper (I): a loupe magnifies the pixels under your cursor. ⌥-click picks without leaving your brush.

The Paint equivalent for Mac: what carries over

Habits from a classic paint program carry over. Copy and paste images with any Mac app: ⌘V puts a picture on its own layer named “Pasted”, ready to move.

Paint My also has layers: each new tool and color starts its own layer, up to 3 on the free version, and every layer can use one of 27 blend modes. Read more in our guide to a drawing app with layers for Mac.

A few things differ: there’s no text tool, and no crop or resize command. You set the canvas size, 64–8192 px per side, when you create it.

Paint on a MacBook Air with a trackpad or a mouse

You need macOS 14 Sonoma or later, but no pen. Paint with the trackpad or a mouse, pinch to zoom up to 6400%, and twist two fingers to turn the canvas like paper. If you add a pen tablet later, 46 brush styles respond to pressure and 13 to tilt.

Painting works offline and nothing you paint is uploaded. Setting it up for a child? See our guide to a drawing app for kids on Mac.

Open PSD files, import pictures, and export PNG or JPEG

Your work saves as a .pmy document, and the File menu also opens PSD files, with layers intact for 8-bit RGB; see how to open PSD files on Mac.

A JPEG or PNG doesn’t open as a document. Choose Magic ▸ “Import Photo…” to place it on a new layer named “Photo”, or paste it, then draw over it. You can also turn a photo into a painting with Magic ▸ “Paint It for Me…”; your first painting is free.

“Export as PNG…” keeps transparency where you didn’t paint, “Export as JPEG…” flattens the picture onto your paper color, or white on “Transparent”, and “Export as Layered PSD…” keeps every layer.

Questions