8 Best Free Paint App for Mac in 2024

is there a paint program for mac? No, Get here Microsoft paint equivalent for mac. i suggest paid and free ms paint alternative for M1 Mac.

in this article, I will show you What is the Mac Equivalent of Paint [Free and Paid Alternatives]

Microsoft Paint or MS Paint is the prototype art creation application that comes pre-installed on Windows PCs. MS Paint can be used to draw, color, edit pictures, including importing files from a digital video or camera recorder. It has been around since 1985, back when Windows 1.0 was developed by Microsoft. The MS paint application is easily one of the most commonly known (and used) Windows applications around. For years, the Paint app was a simple and user-friendly application. However, with the Windows 10 Creators Update, Microsoft developed a “Paint 3D” application that co-exists with Paint. The new app feature supports 3D objects and has several other new features. 

Unfortunately, Mac OS does not come with an image creation app (like Paint). So, if a user is looking for Microsoft Paint on Mac, here are eight best Paint alternatives for Mac they can use:

The ms paint substitute for mac

1. GIMP Open-Source Photoshop

GIMP for Mac is an open-source photo editing app that can serve as an excellent alternative to Paint. The app is compelling and acts more as an alternative for Photoshop than an MS Paint alternative. Since it is easy to use and freely available, it is a viable alternative for Paint on Mac.

The app is expandable, extensible, and modular, and suitable for photo retouching, image composition, and image authoring. 

The app will particularly appeal to illustrators, graphic designers, and photographers. It supports channels, layers and includes advanced image manipulation tools such as saturation levels, hues, curves, and exposure controls.

GIMP also has a vast array of plugins. They allow users to customize the app so it meets their needs perfectly. In addition, since the app is open-source, it has an active community behind it. This has helped the app to remain as one of the best alternatives to Adobe Photoshop.

2. Paintbrush

If one is looking for an app that works similar to MS Paint, then Paintbrush is a perfect choice. The Paintbrush app is free, user-friendly, and perfect for users who wish to make a quick, simple image. The app is quite similar to its Windows counterpart and has all the tools one can find in the Paint app. Just like MS Paint, the interface is easy to use. By its very design, the app is not suitable for creating high-quality art on the computer; however, the app will work perfectly well for most simple image creation tasks.

When one launches the app, they can choose the dimensions of the image they want to create; there are pre-sets for various sizes or go with a custom size. For a free app, Paintbrush is fantastic. It offers all the essential tools one can expect from a Microsoft Paint alternative and can save files into the most widely used formats, including JPEG, PNG, BMP, and more.

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3. Mischief

Mischief is a fantastic drawing app for Mac that comes with all the essential tools a user requires. One can use it to create beautiful pieces of art. The user interface is quite comparable to MS Paint and easy to use. Just like MS Paint, users are provided with pen, eraser, and numerous other shaping tools. It also offers configurability and additional features like a six-brush variant for quick access and unlimited redo or undoes.

This app is also available in a free and a paid version. The free version comes with all essential tools with an infinite canvas, perfect for unfolding new ideas. On the other hand, the premium version has more pre-sets, layers of support, and files can be exported to PSD files. The paid version costs $25, but the good thing is users will get a 15-days free trial before deciding to pay.

4. Acorn

Acorn is a potent image editor for Mac OS 10.10 or advanced operating systems. In addition, it has several handy features like vector drawing and a smudge tool. 

The app can set a single color of any layer to be transparent. In addition, users can rotate and resize and merge each layer.

Acorn’s image-editing app is often called ‘the image editor for humans’ since it’s easy to use. For those users for whom, Photoshop seems complicated; Acorn can be the perfect fit as it fits all the image editing and painting app requirements and has various tools to edit images. For example, it provides options like text, shapes, drawings, and even gradients.

5. Pixelmator

Pixelmator is a beautifully designed app and can rightly be called a better version of MS Paint. The app has all the desirable features of Paint along with several advanced tools. The app features all the tools available in Paint, such as pencil, brush tool, and several selection tools. However, Pixelmator also brings several other useful tools. These include tools like the warp tool, sponge tool, blur and sharpen tools, along with a pen and a freeform pen tool. One particular tool that stands apart from the crowd is the slice tool. With the slice tool, one can create slices of an image and export them as separate images. 

The app has an amazing user interface, and anyone can understand it easily. 

If one is into serious artwork on your Mac, Pixelmator is the way to go. Because of the layer support that the app provides, one can freely create complex artworks in a viable and expandable manner. 

Even though it is a paid app, Pixelmator is worth the price if one plans to use their Mac for digital art creation.

6. DeskScribble

DeskScribble is a paint app that can be used as a blackboard or whiteboard for user’s own or their kid’s scribbles. The app is excellent for visual demonstrations, presentations, and writing notes. It further allows users to draw on top of their desktop and open windows.

 It provides a pencil, eraser, color picker, thickness slider, and click-through tool to interact with other apps. The software can create presentations, visual demonstrations, desktop highlighting, annotations, and writing notes. In addition, it has full autosave, undo and redo support, so one does not have to care if they made an error; they can easily undo their action and start over again.

7. Paint X Lite

Paint X Lite is another app that can be used as an alternative to Paint. It comes with many features that one would find in the Paint app and some extra features that can come in handy. 

Paint X Lite has tools like the pencil, fill the bucket, color picker, and even a text tool. It even features the spray can tool, just like Microsoft Paint. With the massive amount of brush options that the app features, one can easily create great-looking digital art. Paint X Lite even comes with many shapes that will make it easier to create shapes like stars, polygons, and many more. It also comes with a selection of tools that one can easily use.

Paint X Lite for Mac has a free and a paid version. The free version is Paint X Lite, and it offers all the essential features that MS Paint provided. Additionally, it offers some extra features that one can find helpful. The only limitation with the free version is that it puts a watermark on the image that says “Created by Paint X”. Apart from that, the app is excellent and easy to use.

8. Photoscape

Photoscape is amongst the best alternatives to MS Paint. The app mainly focuses on photo editing and can act as the perfect replacement for MS Paint for Mac users.

Many of the tools it offers and are absent on Paint. For instance, one can easily combine multiple photos into one image or watch photos in a slideshow. One can also convert images from the RAW format into JPEGs or splice photos into multiple pieces.

One can also use the app to resize their image, adjust the brightness and color, change the white balance, correct the backlight, add text, draw pictures, add filters, remove red-eye, and more.

As Paint for Mac does not exist, these MS Paint alternatives can help users create excellent digital arts. We hope this list of the best MS Paint alternatives will help users find suitable replacements for MS Paint. Then, depending on their requirements, one can select any of these eight apps and create exciting digital arts.

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Karly Wood

Karly Wood, a Wellington-based journalist, excels in covering Apple and tech trends. With a diverse background in public safety, government, and education reporting, her insights bridge multiple disciplines, offering readers a well-rounded perspective on today's technological advancements. Contact Her Team:- [email protected] [OR] [email protected]

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