Before we begin
Even though we don’t have a full-fledged paint app, the Preview app does offer a few basic tools that you can use as an alternative. To get started, open Preview and open up the image you want to edit or simply open the image with Preview directly. Next show the Markup Toolbar by clicking the icon shown below. Read: Use Mac’s Preview App like a Pro with These Tips & Tricks
You can now find a whole host of editing options from simple sketching and drawing to insertion of various shapes and text and even adjusting image parameters like exposure, contrast, sharpness, and a lot more. You also get the ability to add a signature or signing your PDFs from Preview itself, image size formatting, and text formatting options. Although Preview has a lot to offer, it may not be the perfect replacement for some as it does not allow you to create new image files which is its biggest setback.
Quick Tip: Be sure to first make a copy of your image before editing with Preview, as it automatically saves all your changes and it could be really hard to revert back if you have already saved the image.
1. Paint Brush
Paint Brush for Mac OS is like the perfect replica of MS paint. The app is quite bare-bones and extremely easy to use, offering just the basic functions of a paint application. Unlike Preview, in this app, you can create a new document and this is the first thing you are greeted with, on opening the application and you can state the size of your canvas. It offers all the basic functionalities just as MS paint like a pencil, color fill, shapes, text, magnification, and also a color picker tool which comes in very handy. It also supports most image formats including JPEG, PNG, BMP, TIFF, and GIF. Paint Brush is also very fast to open and get work done with and will be perfect for doing some small editing or painting stuff in a jiffy.
Price: Free Link: Download Paintbrush from here
2. Paint S
Paint S is sort of a middle ground when you want more features than MS Paint but not quite full-fledged as Photoshop. You can use this drawing tool to edit photos, create art, and do basic scaling of images. The basic array of tools that you get with this app include fill, eyedropper, line, curve, rectangle, ellipse, and text. Other than that, it also has some advanced tools the enhance the functionality of the app such as transparency, drop shadow, grids, rulers, and even layers. The layer function lets you edit over existing images without permanently changing the picture completely and a lot of Paint users would love this functionality. Quick Tip: You can quickly toggle between layers and shift those to hide or reveal the layer elements without worrying about where those elements are on the canvas.
Price: Free, unlock all features for $8.99 Link: Paint S
3. Seashore
Seashore is a free, open-source paint application for Mac OS built entirely in Cocoa. While the UI might seem a little dated, the app has a lot of tricks up its sleeves which makes it an upgrade to Preview or Paint Brush. SeaShore introduces the concept of layers, just like you have in Photoshop. The layers work like sheets of acetate stacked upon each other and the transparent areas allow you to see through to the underbidding layers. This allows you to create different layers for different effects and adjusting the effects separately or deleting them separately, thus providing easy management. Seashore has a nifty gradient tool where you can specify the direction and strength of the gradient. Some other features include alpha channel editing, texts with subpixel rendering, and textures. Read: 10 Best Ways to Open and Edit PSD files without Photoshop
Quick Tip: Another free and open-source alternative is Pinta, which is also cross-platform and an exact clone of Paint.NET on Windows. Price: Free Link: Download Seashore from here
4. MS Paint using Wine or Play On Mac
If you didn’t know, Wine is an awesome and efficient way to run native Windows applications on your Mac and the best part about it is that unlike Bootcamp or VM installations, it does not require a windows license and does not add that overhead. The setup process can be a little tedious, but it is definitely rewarding as you can run most of your Windows apps on your Mac. Play On Mac is a third-party tool built on Wine, which we recommend for installing Windows applications on Mac OS. Just download Play On Mac and all the dependencies required for Wine and then you should be able to install any Windows app of your choice. To install Paint, go to Install Apps > Graphics > Paint and hit download. MS Paint should be installed on your computer and it works just as well on any Windows PC.
Quick Tip: Although Wine is much less intensive or involving than Bootcamp or a virtual machine running Windows, it still takes up a lot of space with its dependencies and adds overhead. QEMU is an open-sourced virtualizer that allows you to run Windows for ARM on M1 Macs that would let you run Windows apps pretty seamlessly. Price: Free Link: Download Play On Mac from here
5. JS Paint
If you’re not a fan of installing a virtual machine and just want the MS Paint app for nostalgic reasons, JS Paint is a great alternative. It’s a web app that runs in your web browser and simulates the Windows XP version of paint. The web app is light-weight, doesn’t consume any resources, and works like a charm.
The toolbar on the left holds the same basic tools such as fill bucket, color picker, shapes, spray paint, text, etc. You can use the cursor to select a tool and just start drawing, it’s that simple. You can use it on any web browser and once the app is loaded, you can use it without an internet connection. JS Paint is great as an MS Paint alternative and you can check it out for free. Price: Free Link: JSPaint.app
6. Pixelmator
While MS Paint is mostly about simplicity, it doesn’t hurt to include a feature-packed app for all the power users out there. As I said, by no means should Pixelmator be considered a basic app as it is far from that, having a boatload of options, effects, and features. Pixelmator also offers layers with the option of layer styles presets where you can either use a predefined preset or save your own custom style preset. It also has retouching tools, color correction tools, and a real-time effects machine along with all the drawing and brushing tools. It even sports iCloud support and the ability to publish your pictures directly to social media. What makes Pixelmator stand out from all the other professional graphic utility apps, is its flexibility; while it does have a lot of features, one can also just use the brush or pencil tools to doodle anything just as they would in any other paint app. The app is not at all overwhelming even for a beginner and strikes a perfect balance between simplicity and productivity. If you do not mind spending $30, Pixelmator is a keeper.
Price: $29.99 Link: Get Pixelmator on the App Store
Wrapping Up: Microsoft Paint for Mac
Mac OS doesn’t come with any paint app but that doesn’t mean that there is a dearth of paint apps on Mac and it is quite the opposite. But before downloading any third-party app, we highly recommend checking out Preview and checking whether it fulfills all your needs or not. Paint Brush is an awesome simple and easy to use paint application while Seashore is slightly more complex with the addition of layers. Pixelmator is one heck of an app with all its features, but it is very flexible and you can use it as an MS paint replacement to a cheaper Photoshop alternative. And last but not least, if you need to use a lot of Windows apps, Wine is your best bet to get MS paint running on your Mac. So this was our list of Microsoft Paint for Mac. Which one do you use daily or did we miss yours? Let us know in the comments below.
