Pincel on your desktop.

Windows

Requires: Windows 10 or 11, x64 (on ARM through the built-in x64 emulation).

The installer sets Pincel up for you only, in %LOCALAPPDATA%\Pincel, without administrator rights, with a Start menu entry. It registers Pincel for .aseprite, PNG, JPEG, WebP, and the other formats it opens; Windows lets only you choose the default app, so the first install opens Settings → Default apps on Pincel's page. Uninstall: Settings → Apps → Installed apps. The MSI package installs for all users and needs administrator rights.

First start: the installer is not signed with a code-signing certificate, so SmartScreen shows "Windows protected your PC". Click More info, then Run anyway.

macOS

Requires: macOS 10.13 or newer; one app for Apple silicon and Intel.

Open the disk image and drag Pincel into Applications. Finder then offers it under "Open With" for the formats it opens; make it the default through "Get Info" → "Open with" → "Change All".

First start: the app is not notarized by Apple, so macOS won't open it at first. Control-click it in Applications, choose Open, and confirm; on macOS 15 and newer, open it once, then go to System Settings → Privacy & Security → Open Anyway. Or in Terminal: xattr -dr com.apple.quarantine /Applications/Pincel.app.

Linux

Requires: x64 with glibc 2.35 or newer: Ubuntu 22.04, Debian 12, Fedora 36, and later.

The AppImage runs as downloaded once it is executable. To install it for you, without root — with a pincel command, an application-menu entry, and "Open with" for its formats:

chmod +x pincel-linux-x64.AppImage
./pincel-linux-x64.AppImage --install

That copies it to ~/.local/share/pincel and links ~/.local/bin/pincel; uninstall with pincel --uninstall. On Ubuntu 24.04 and newer, AppImages need libfuse2t64 (sudo apt install libfuse2t64). The .deb and .rpm packages install through your package manager instead and are updated with it.

Verify

The checksums of all files are in SHA256SUMS. On Windows: Get-FileHash pincel-windows-x64-setup.exe; on macOS and Linux: shasum -a 256 or sha256sum.

Updates

The desktop app asks GitHub at most once a day for a new version, downloads it in the background, and checks its signature before installing; it takes effect at the next start (on Windows once you quit Pincel). Help → Check for Updates… checks right away, Help → Install Updates Automatically turns it off. The .deb and .rpm packages and an AppImage that was not installed with --install leave updates to you.

Or just use the browser

Nothing to install: the editor runs in any modern browser, works offline, and installs from there as an app (PWA). Your files stay on your device either way.