There is something simple and refreshing about adding color to a drawing. Fortunately, this privilege isn’t reserved just for kids—or people with iPads. You can still enjoy some great color experiences on your Mac if you want.
Health research shows that coloring helps adults relax and relieve stress. So if you’re bored at work or have nothing but your Mac and want to engage in a relaxing, fun activity, do some coloring.
Below we’ve listed some of the best freebies you can get on the Mac App Store.
1. Zen: Coloring book
Zen: Coloring Book is one of the few coloring apps made for macOS. Unlike most of the others on this list, you don’t have to move to the iPhone and iPad section of the App Store to find it. This means you shouldn’t run into any major compatibility issues you might run into with other apps.
The user interface is simple, reminiscent of the traditional coloring book, and offers many free mandalas, patterns and motifs. As the name suggests, Zen: Coloring Book is all about relaxation and stress relief, which is why it also comes with soothing Zen background music. But if you prefer to play your own background music or none at all, you can easily turn it off with an in-app switch.
Zen has several categories for you to color, including animals, fairies, and artist contributions. You can unlock all of these for $9.99.
While the app is generally good, there are still some features you might not like:
- The undo button only goes back seven steps, and there is no keyboard button for it.
- There is no repeat button.
- You might miss the tutorial video if you’re not paying attention.
Download: Zen: Coloring Book for Adults (Free, Premium Version Available)
2. Epic coloring book for adults
Epic Coloring Book for Adults (or just Coloring Book for Adults) is another macOS coloring app designed with the OS in mind. The user interface is simple yet rich, easily dividing all the images it has to offer into large, easy-to-view categories.
The app allows you to choose a color palette and has tools such as an eyedropper, shading, zooming and navigation lock. You can access the dinosaurs, mandalas and owls categories as a free user. This gives you almost 100 pictures to color for free.
If you want, you can pay to unlock more categories that catch your interest for $1.99. Or you can pay a one-time fee to unlock everything of $12.99.
But here are some things you might not like:
- The categories are limited and there are no third party artist categories.
- There is no daily free art to color if you run out of pictures.
- The last update for the app was in 2021.
Download: Epic Coloring Book for Adults (Free, Premium Version Available)
3. PiXX: Pixel Art Coloring Game
If you’ve ever wondered if multiplayer coloring games exist, now you know they do. Pixel Art Coloring Game, or PiXX, combines engaging pixel art and multiplayer gameplay and delivers it to your Mac.
In this game you choose a mode: random multiplayer, single player or play with family and friends. Alone or together with others, you use the number guide to color pictures pixel by pixel. The single player mode offers a wide variety of beautiful pixel art to choose from. But you don’t get full access to the fill tool without subscribing (it makes coloring a lot easier).
The subscription costs $5.99 monthly, $14.99 quarterly, or $29.99 annually, and it will remove the ads, allow you to create unlimited multiplayer games, and give you more pictures to paint.
However, there are some of the app’s design flaws:
- The app may spam you with a notification to select your account.
- There’s no one-time fee – just expensive monthly, quarterly or annual payments.
- Crashes often in multiplayer mode.
- It can be difficult to color the corners.
Download: PiXX: Pixel Art Coloring Game (Free, Subscription Available)
4. Coloring book∘
Coloring Book∘ is an iPad app that you can install on your Mac, and it’s completely free. The game has no ads or paywalls, just pictures to color on a friendly user interface.
Although it may not have many complex tools to make your coloring as realistic as you want, Coloring Book∘ offers a wide variety of colors to paint with. They also offer enough to keep you engaged and not overwhelmed by too many choices.
The only issues with this app are:
Download: Coloring book∘ (free)
5. Polygon
Polygon has one of the most modern user interfaces for coloring apps, with a seemingly endless collection of polygon-generated images. The engaging reward systems, simple animations and events can keep you hooked and addicted to this fun color by number game.
Polygon is also one of the only macOS coloring apps that rewards users with achievements and badges, giving you a sense of pride in your coloring achievements. It also has a good filing system that keeps all the work you have completed in a special gallery and all the ones you have started in another segment.
You can remove the in-game ads for a weekly, monthly or yearly fee.
Here’s what we don’t like:
- The app is not Mac friendly; You may need to use the pointer as if it were a finger.
- There are too many ads at every step of the app.
- Paying for the monthly or weekly plan is expensive.
Download: Polygon (free, subscription available)
6. Coloring page ASMR
You will love this app if you like bold, simple animations and bright colors. Color Page is a level-by-level coloring game that makes you draw the object before you color it.
Interacting with the pen causes it to move across the dotted lines while making ASMR drawing sounds. The game here is to learn when to stop moving the pen so your drawing doesn’t get ruined. After that you get to color it to your satisfaction.
Like Polygon, this is a modern iPad game with a vertical orientation and large iPad-friendly buttons. If you really want to enjoy games like these, you should play them on an iPad. However, you may want to benefit from a touchscreen that supports macOS.
But here are some things we didn’t like:
- The game has so many ads but no option to remove them.
- There is no real task involved; most of the coloring and drawing is automatic.
- It freezes or crashes while watching ads on macOS sometimes.
- It is only supported on Macs using M1 chips or later.
Download: Coloring page ASMR (free)
Relieve stress with art
Unfortunately, there aren’t many coloring apps for Mac out there. But this selection should be enough to get you started until more appear on the Mac App Store.
Hopefully this list helped you find a coloring app that you like. Go ahead, relieve some stress and unlock your creative side with these easy coloring apps.
