Kitsmith / Utilities / System Color Picker
A free, no-frills wrapper around macOS’s built-in color picker, from prolific indie developer Sindre Sorhus — palettes, global shortcuts, and Hex/HSL/RGB/OKLCH/LCH/CMYK copy formats.
Our take
Does one thing rather than bundling a full design-tool suite: it exposes the Mac’s own system color sampler as a standalone menu bar or windowed app, with palettes, recently-picked history, and a global keyboard shortcut to invoke it from anywhere. Because it wraps Apple’s own color sampler rather than reimplementing picking, a macOS 26 system bug can occasionally sample the wrong color — something the developer notes plainly and can’t fix on their own. Free, with no in-app purchases.
- Price
- Free
- License
- Proprietary
- Requires
- macOS 26.1 or later, per the Mac App Store listing.
- Get it via
- Mac App Store
- Developer
- Sindre Sorhus
Do you use System Color Picker?
Who made this
A well-known open-source Mac and Node.js maintainer, extremely well-documented across his own site, GitHub, and social profiles.
Site (opens in new tab) GitHub (opens in new tab) X (opens in new tab) Mastodon (opens in new tab)
What it does
Palettes & history
Saves recently picked colors and imports Simple Color Palette / Adobe Swatch Exchange (ASE) palettes.
Multi-format copy
Copies and pastes colors in Hex, HSL, RGB, Unit RGB, OKLCH, LCH, and CMYK.
Global shortcut
Invokes the picker or toggles the window from anywhere with a keyboard shortcut.
Menu bar or windowed
Runs as a normal app or lives quietly in the menu bar, with launch-at-login support.
The deal
- Free, no in-app purchases
Worth knowing: Relies on macOS’s own color sampler; the developer notes a macOS 26 system bug that can occasionally sample the wrong color, which is outside the app’s control.
System Color Picker — questions people ask
Is System Color Picker free?
Yes — free with no in-app purchases, per the Mac App Store listing.
Who makes System Color Picker?
Sindre Sorhus, an independent developer known for a large catalog of Mac and open-source utilities.
Is System Color Picker free?
Yes — System Color Picker is free.
Does System Color Picker work alongside a notch app like Alcove?
Yes — System Color Picker lives in the screen, so it runs happily alongside any Dynamic Island hub or notch app.
Where can I download System Color Picker?
System Color Picker is available via Mac App Store.
Reviews
No public ratings yet. Reader reviews are coming to Kitsmith soon.
Listing hand-verified September 18, 2026 from the developer's site and public sources.
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