Pika

Pika (pronounced pi·kuh, like picker) is an easy to use, open-source, native colour picker for macOS. Pika makes it easy to quickly find colours onscreen, in the format you need, so you can get on with being a speedy, successful designer.

Download

Download the latest version of the app at:
superhighfives.com/pika

Or install with Homebrew:

brew install --cask pika

Features

• Quick color picking from anywhere on screen
• Multiple color format support (Hex, RGB, HSB, HSL, LAB, OpenGL)
• Keyboard shortcuts for efficiency
• URL scheme support for automation
• System color picker integration
• Undo/redo functionality
• Color swapping capabilities

Learn More

Learn more about the motivations behind the project, and the product vision.

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Requirements

OS

• macOS Sequoia (Version 14) and newer

Keyboard Shortcuts

Pika supports the following keyboard shortcuts:

Group	Shortcut	Action
Pick	⌘ D	Pick foreground
Pick	⌘ ⇧ D	Pick background
Copy	⌘ C	Copy foreground
Copy	⌘ ⇧ C	Copy background
System picker	⌘ S	Use for foreground
System picker	⌘ ⇧ S	Use for background
Change format	⌘ 1	Format Hex
Change format	⌘ 2	Format RGB
Change format	⌘ 3	Format HSB
Change format	⌘ 4	Format HSL
Change format	⌘ 5	Format LAB
Change format	⌘ 6	Format OpenGL
Change format	⌘ 7	Format OKLCH
Actions	X	Swap colors
Actions	H	Toggle history
Actions	C	Toggle compliance
Actions	P	Toggle colour preview
Actions	⌘ Z	Undo last pick
Actions	⌘ ⇧ Z	Redo last pick
Actions	⌘ ,	Preferences
Actions	⌘ Q	Quit Pika

URL Triggers

You can also trigger Pika using the pika:// URL scheme.

When picking or copying, you can append a format to the URL — <format> is one of hex, rgb, hsb, hsl, lab, opengl, or oklch. For example, pika://pick/foreground/hex.

Group	URL	Action
Pick	pika://pick/foreground	Pick foreground
Pick	pika://pick/background	Pick background
Pick	pika://pick/contrast	Pick foreground and background
Pick	pika://pick/foreground/<format>	Pick foreground in a specific format
Pick	pika://pick/background/<format>	Pick background in a specific format
System picker	pika://system/foreground	Use for foreground
System picker	pika://system/background	Use for background
Copy	pika://copy/foreground	Copy foreground
Copy	pika://copy/background	Copy background
Copy	pika://copy/foreground/<format>	Copy foreground in a specific format
Copy	pika://copy/background/<format>	Copy background in a specific format
Copy	pika://copy/text	Copy all colours as text
Copy	pika://copy/json	Copy all colours as JSON
Change format	pika://format/hex	Format Hex
Change format	pika://format/rgb	Format RGB
Change format	pika://format/hsb	Format HSB
Change format	pika://format/hsl	Format HSL
Change format	pika://format/lab	Format LAB
Change format	pika://format/opengl	Format OpenGL
Change format	pika://format/oklch	Format OKLCH
Actions	pika://swap	Swap colors
Actions	pika://undo	Undo last pick
Actions	pika://redo	Redo last pick
Set colour	pika://set/foreground/<hex>	Set foreground
Set colour	pika://set/background/<hex>	Set background
History	pika://history/show	Show history
History	pika://history/hide	Hide history
History	pika://history/toggle	Toggle history
Compliance	pika://compliance/show	Show compliance
Compliance	pika://compliance/hide	Hide compliance
Compliance	pika://compliance/toggle	Toggle compliance
Preview	pika://preview/show	Show colour preview
Preview	pika://preview/hide	Hide colour preview
Preview	pika://preview/toggle	Toggle colour preview
Windows	pika://window/about	Open About
Windows	pika://window/help	Open Help
Windows	pika://window/preferences	Open Preferences
Windows	pika://window/splash	Open Splash
Windows	pika://window/resize/<w>/<h>	Resize window
Appearance	pika://appearance/light	Force light appearance
Appearance	pika://appearance/dark	Force dark appearance
Appearance	pika://appearance/system	Restore system appearance

Development

• Xcode
• Swift Package Manager
• Mint

Getting Started with Contributing

Make sure you have mint installed, and bootstrap the toolchain dependencies:

brew install mint
mint bootstrap

Open Pika.xcodeproj and to run the project. Sparkle requires that you have a team and signing profile set for the project, or it will crash with a dyld / signal SIGABRT error.

If you run into any problems, please detail them in an issue.

Contributions

Any and all contributions are welcomed. Check for open issues, look through the project roadmap, help translating the app and submit a PR.

Dependencies and Thanks

• Sparkle software update framework
• Defaults
• Keyboard Shortcuts
• Launch At Login
• NSWindow+Fade
• Sweetercolor colour extension library for Swift (slightly tweaked for NSColor, rather than UIColor)
• Color names
• Metal shader code in part thanks to Smiley

And a huge thank you to Stormnoid for the incredible 2D vector field visualisation on Shadertoy.