Health research shows that coloring helps adults relax and relieve stress. So, if you’re bored at work or find yourself with nothing but your Mac and want to engage in a relaxing, fun activity, then you should do some coloring.
Below, we’ve listed some of the best free ones you can get on the Mac App Store.
1. Zen: Coloring Book
Zen: Coloring Book is one of the few coloring apps created for macOS. Unlike most of the others on this list, you wouldn’t need to move to the iPhone & iPad section of the App Store to find it. This means that you shouldn’t run into any major compatibility issues you might encounter with other apps.
The UI is simple, reminiscent of the traditional coloring book, and offers many free mandalas, patterns, and motifs. As the name implies, Zen: Coloring Book is all about relaxation and stress relief, which is why it also comes with soothing zen background music. However, If you prefer to run your own background music or none at all, you can easily turn it off with a switch in the app.
Zen has more categories for you to color, including animals, fairies, and submissions from artists. You can unlock all of those for $9.99.
While the app is generally good, there are still some features you might not like:
The undo button goes back only seven steps, and there’s no keyboard button for it. There’s no redo button. You might miss the tutorial video if you don’t pay 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 UI is simple but still rich, easily breaking up all the images it has to offer into major easy-to-see categories.
The app allows you to choose your color palette and has tools like eyedropper, shaders, zooming, and navigation lock. You can access the dinosaurs, mandalas, and owls categories as a free user. This gives you almost 100 images to color for free.
If you want, you can pay to unlock any more categories that catch your interest for $1.99. Or, you can pay a one-time unlock-all fee of $12.99.
However, 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 images. The last update for the app was in 2021.
Download: Epic Coloring Book for Adults (Free, premium version available)
3. PiXX: Pixel Art Colouring Game
If you’ve ever wondered whether multiplayer coloring games exist, now you know they do. Pixel Art Colouring Game, or PiXX, combines engaging pixel art and multiplayer gaming and delivers it to your Mac.
In this game, you select a mode: random multiplayer, single-player, or play with family and friends. Alone or with others, you use the number guide to color pictures pixel by pixel. The single-player mode offers a wide range of beautiful pixel art to choose from. But you don’t get full access to the fill tool without subscribing (it makes coloring much easier).
The subscription costs $5.99 monthly, $14.99 quarterly, or $29.99 yearly, and it will remove the ads, allow you to create unlimited multiplayer games, and give you more images to paint.
However, there are a few of the app’s design flaws:
The app might spam you with a notification to choose your account. There’s no one-time fee—only expensive monthly, quarterly, or yearly payments. Crashes often happen in multiplayer mode. It can be difficult to color the corners.
Download: PiXX: Pixel Art Colouring Game (Free, subscription available)
4. Coloring Book∘
Coloring Book∘ is an iPad app you can install on your Mac, and it is completely free. The game has no ads or paywalls, just images to color on a friendly UI.
While it may not have many complex tools to make your coloring as realistic as you would like, Coloring Book∘ offers a wide range of colors to paint with. They also offer enough to keep you engaged and not overwhelmed by too many choices.
The only problems with this app are:
It works only on M1 Macs or later. (Find out if your Mac uses Intel or Apple Silicon). It’s not verified for macOS yet.
Download: Coloring Book∘ (Free)
5. Polygon
Polygon boasts one of the most modern coloring app UIs, with a seemingly endless collection of polygon-generated images. Its engaging reward systems, simple animations, and events can keep you hooked, and you just might find yourself addicted to this fun number coloring game.
Polygon is also one of the only macOS coloring apps that reward users with achievements and badges, giving you a sense of pride in your coloring accomplishments. It also has a good filing system that keeps all the work you’ve finished in a special gallery and all the ones you’ve started in another segment.
You can remove the ads in the game for a weekly, monthly, or yearly fee.
Here’s what we don’t like:
The app is not Mac-friendly; you might have to use your pointer like it’s a finger. There are too many ads at every step of the app. It is expensive to pay for the monthly or weekly plan.
Download: Polygon (Free, subscription available)
6. Color Page ASMR
You will love this app if you like bold, easy animations and bright colors. Color Page is a level-by-level coloring game that makes you draw the item 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 in satisfyingly.
Like Polygon, this is a modern-looking iPad game featuring 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 might want to take advantage of a touchscreen monitor 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’s no real task involved; most of the coloring and drawing are automatic. It freezes or crashes while watching ads on macOS sometimes. It’s only supported on Macs using M1 chips or later.
Download: Color 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 going until more pop up on the Mac App Store.
Hopefully, this list helped you find a coloring app that you enjoy. Go ahead, relieve some stress and unlock your creative side with these easy-going coloring apps.
