System Color Picker
The familiar color picker supercharged
Features
- Palettes
- Recently picked colors
- Quickly copy, paste, and convert colors in Hex, HSL, RGB, Unit RGB (0-1), OKLCH, LCH format
- Show as a normal app or in the menu bar
- Pick a color or toggle the window from anywhere with a global keyboard shortcut
- Make the window stay on top of all other windows
- Launch it at login (when in the menu bar)
- Hide menu bar icon
- Shortcuts support
- Import Simple Color Palette and Adobe Swatch Exchange (ASE) palettes
You may also like my Simple Color Palette app.
Tips
- Press the Space key while using the color sampler to show the RGB values. The color sampler is a system component and it can unfortunately not show other kinds of color values.
- Press the Option key when copying the Hex color to invert whether to include
#. - Press the Shift key while selecting a color using the color sampler to prevent it from disappearing after your selection.
Keyboard shortcuts
You can use the following keyboard shortcuts in the app:
- Pick color: Command p
- Copy as Hex: Shift Command h
- Copy as HSL: Shift Command s
- Copy as RGB: Shift Command r
- Copy as Unit RGB: Shift Command u
- Copy as OKLCH: Shift Command o
- Copy as LCH: Shift Command l
- Paste color: Shift Command v (In the format Hex, HSL, RGB, Unit RGB, OKLCH, or LCH)
- Reset opacity: Control Shift o
Plugins
The built-in color picker supports plugins:
Frequently Asked Questions
The app does not show up in the menu bar
macOS hides menu bar apps when there is no space left in the menu bar. This is a common problem on MacBooks with a notch. Try quitting some menu bar apps to free up space. If this does not solve it, try quitting Bartender if you have it installed.
What is Unit RGB?
It represents RGB values in the range 0-1 instead of 0-255. This format is commonly used for programming (SwiftUI, AppKit, UIKit, etc.) and other graphics programming contexts. For example, 0.5, 0.5, 0.5 in Unit RGB is equivalent to rgb(128, 128, 128) in standard RGB. It accepts values in the format 0.1, 0.1, 0.1 and 0.1 0.1 0.1, including with opacity 0.1, 0.1, 0.1, 0.5.
What is OKLCH color?
It’s a more human-friendly color format. Prefer this format.
How is OKLCH better than LCH?
OKLCH improves upon LCH by providing more accurate and consistent colors, particularly in very bright or very saturated areas.
The color changes if I copy and then paste it
That is because the default color space in the picker is Display P3, which is part of CSS Color 4, but the color space used for the legacy CSS color formats is sRGB (browsers are starting to handle color spaces but they are not all there yet).
How do I use palettes?
You can manage palettes by selecting the third tab in the window toolbar.
The fastest way to add a color to a palette is to paste a Hex color value into the app and then click the + button in the palette. You can also drag and drop a color into the palette from anywhere.
Palettes can be accessed both from the app and the menu bar icon (if enabled). You can even access them in other apps that use the system color picker.
You can find palettes on Coolors. Download the ASE palette type, right-click the file, and select “Open In › Color Picker”.
How can I remove a color in a palette or swatch?
Select the color and press the Delete key or drag and drop the color onto the trash icon in the Dock.
How can I change the color space?
Right-click the color wheel. You want to select “Display P3” if you use LCH or “sRGB” if you use Hex, HSL, or RGB.
Note that the HSL and RGB formats will always be clamped to sRGB color space.
Can you support SwiftUI.Color / UIColor / NSColor formats?
The best practice is to use Asset Catalog for colors instead of hard-coding the values in code. If you really want to hard-code colors, the Skala color picker plugin supports UIColor and NSColor.
Why does the OKLCH chroma value differ from other sources?
The app displays the OKLCH chroma value as a percentage instead of an absolute value for better user-friendliness. For example, oklch(70% 25% 135) in the app corresponds to oklch(70% 0.1 135) on oklch.com. Both are correct: the percentage form (0-100%) and the decimal form (0-0.4) are standard ways to express OKLCH chroma.
How can I export color palettes?
- Open Finder
- Press Command + Shift + G
- Enter
~/Library/Colors - Copy the desired palette files
How can I export swatches?
- Go to the color palettes folder (see above)
- Copy
NSColorPanelSwatches.plist
This file is not viewable or editable. It can only be used for backup or transfer between Macs.
Can I contribute localizations?
I don’t plan to localize the app.
More FAQs…
Scripting
You can use the “Sample Color from Screen” action for Shortcuts to sample color from the screen and then do something with it.
Tip: You can run shortcuts from the command-line.
Older versions
Non-App Store Version
A special macOS version for users that cannot access the App Store. It won’t receive automatic updates. I will update it here once a year.
Download (2.1.0 · macOS 15+)