Quikanva

<p align="center"> <img src="docs/assets/brand/app-icon.png" width="112" alt="Quikanva app icon"> </p> <h1 align="center">Quikanva</h1> <p align="center"><strong>A native macOS sketch canvas that is one shortcut away.</strong></p> <p align="center"> <a href="https://github.com/mikr13/quikanva/releases/latest"><img alt="Latest release" src="https://img.shields.io/github/v/release/mikr13/quikanva?sort=semver"></a> <a href="https://github.com/mikr13/quikanva/actions/workflows/ci.yml"><img alt="CI status" src="https://github.com/mikr13/quikanva/actions/workflows/ci.yml/badge.svg"></a> <img alt="macOS 14 or later" src="https://img.shields.io/badge/macOS-14%2B-111827?logo=apple"> <img alt="Swift 6" src="https://img.shields.io/badge/Swift-6-F05138?logo=swift&logoColor=white"> <a href="LICENSE"><img alt="MIT License" src="https://img.shields.io/badge/license-MIT-2563EB"></a> </p>

Quikanva is a free, open-source visual scratchpad for Mac. Press <kbd>⌘</kbd><kbd>⇧</kbd><kbd>K</kbd>, sketch an idea with shapes, arrows, text, images, or freehand ink, then copy or export it. There is no account, cloud workspace, or document setup to get between the thought and the canvas.

Why Quikanva?

• Instant: open a new canvas from a global shortcut, the menu bar, Raycast, or a quikanva:// URL.
• Capable: draw, select, resize, rotate, curve, style, layer, align, and export real diagrams.
• Native: built with SwiftUI and AppKit, with Mac menus, shortcuts, windows, accessibility, dark mode, and reduced-motion support.
• Local-first: sketches autosave on your Mac. Quikanva has no account, analytics, or ads, and its only network use is an update check you control.
• Focused: floating canvases and a visual gallery, without the machinery of a collaborative whiteboard.

See it in action

Both examples were drawn and captured in Quikanva. They use its shipping canvas tools rather than mock UI.

Install

Quikanva requires macOS 14 Sonoma or later.

1. Download the latest DMG and open it.
2. Drag Quikanva.app to the Applications shortcut.
3. Eject the Quikanva disk image and open Quikanva from Applications.

After that, Quikanva updates itself. On the second launch it asks whether to check for updates automatically. You can also choose Check for Updates… from the menu bar. Each update is verified with a signature before it installs. Builds released before the updater have no update check, so download the latest release by hand once.

Prefer to inspect and build the source yourself? See Development.

Your first sketch

1. Launch Quikanva. It lives in the menu bar and does not add a Dock icon.
2. Press <kbd>⌘</kbd><kbd>⇧</kbd><kbd>K</kbd> anywhere to open a canvas.
3. Draw immediately with the default freehand tool, or press a tool key such as <kbd>R</kbd>, <kbd>A</kbd>, or <kbd>T</kbd>.
4. Use the share button to copy the sketch or export PNG/JPEG.
5. Open the Gallery from the menu bar or press <kbd>⌘</kbd><kbd>G</kbd> while Quikanva is active.

Sketches autosave locally as you work. Read the User Guide for selection, styling, gallery management, always-on-top canvases, automation, and export.

Tools

Tool shortcuts can be reassigned in Settings → Canvas. See the complete Shortcut Reference.

Features

Capture instantly

• Global shortcut (<kbd>⌘</kbd><kbd>⇧</kbd><kbd>K</kbd> by default) that opens a new canvas from any app, with prewarmed windows that appear right away
• Menu-bar app with New Canvas, Open Gallery, Settings, and Quit, and no Dock icon
• quikanva:// URL routes and included Raycast script commands
• Optional launch at login
• Always-on-top canvas windows for presenting and screen sharing, toggled from Settings, the Canvas menu, or a global shortcut (<kbd>⌃</kbd><kbd>⌥</kbd><kbd>T</kbd> by default)
• A limit on how many canvases can be open at once, or no limit at all

Draw

• Shapes, lines, arrows, text, images, and freehand ink from a floating toolbar that adapts to the window width
• Freehand selected on every new canvas, with smoothing applied when you finish a stroke
• Multi-line notes that wrap at the canvas edge, edited in place with a double-click
• Image paste and drag-and-drop, with an optional subtle shadow
• An eraser that removes elements with a click or a drag
• Scroll and Hand-tool panning, pinch zoom, and zoom in, out, to fit, to selection, or reset, with smooth, interruptible transitions

Select and arrange

• Click, Shift-click, and marquee selection
• Move, rotate, and resize with eight handles, holding Shift to keep proportions
• Arrow-key nudging in 1-point steps, or 10-point steps with Shift
• Duplicate, copy and paste, delete, bring to front, and send to back
• Curved lines and arrows with draggable endpoints and midpoint, which keep their resize and rotate handles
• Snapping to other elements, the viewport, and the grid, with alignment guides and an Option-drag bypass
• Native undo and redo for every canvas change

Style

• Hand-drawn or precise rendering with adjustable roughness, seeded per element so the sketchy look never shimmers as you pan, zoom, or redraw
• Stroke, fill, and canvas background colors
• Solid or hachure fills
• Solid, dashed, or dotted strokes with adjustable width and opacity
• Open, closed, filled, or bar arrowheads, on one end or both
• Text in Helvetica Neue, Avenir Next, Comic Sans MS, Georgia, or Menlo, with weight, size, alignment, and italic, underline, or strikethrough styling
• A style inspector that applies to the current selection or to new elements

Save and organize

• Autosave shortly after each change, which skips unchanged canvases and flushes when a window closes
• Memorable two-word titles with the creation date and time, such as Cosmic Ladle - 2026-08-05 14:30
• <kbd>⌘</kbd><kbd>S</kbd> to give a sketch a deliberate name
• Automatic cleanup of empty canvases on close, which you can turn off
• A sticky-note-style Gallery that shows each sketch at its real aspect ratio
• Gallery actions to open, rename, export, and delete, plus multi-select, select all, and batch delete

Export and share

• Copy as image (<kbd>⌘</kbd><kbd>⇧</kbd><kbd>C</kbd>), PNG export (<kbd>⌘</kbd><kbd>E</kbd>), and JPEG export
• 2x rendering, cropped tightly to your content
• An optional background, so PNGs can be transparent
• Sharing from an open canvas or straight from a Gallery card

Customize

• Portrait (9:16), Square (1:1), Standard (4:3), and Widescreen (16:9) canvas frames
• Defaults for background, stroke, and fill colors, drawing and fill style, stroke and arrowhead style, and text font, weight, and size
• A reassignable key for every drawing tool, where choosing a taken key swaps the two
• Recordable global shortcuts and a system or sortable date format for new titles

Built for the Mac

• A SwiftUI shell around an AppKit canvas, with native menus, windows, and undo
• Liquid Glass on the toolbar and Gallery on macOS 26 and later, with accessible fallbacks on older versions
• Fluid, spring-based motion for tools, the style inspector, and Gallery cards that respects Reduced Motion
• VoiceOver labels, keyboard access, dark mode, and Increased Contrast support
• A layered app icon made with Icon Composer

Privacy

Quikanva does not create an account, send analytics, or upload sketches. Its only network request is the update check against GitHub releases, which you can turn off. App data is stored under ~/Library/Application Support/Quikanva/. Read the short Privacy Note for the exact boundary.

Automation

Quikanva registers these URL routes:

quikanva://new
quikanva://gallery
quikanva://open?id=<UUID>

Raycast script commands are included in integrations/raycast.

Documentation

• User Guide
• Shortcut Reference
• Troubleshooting
• Privacy Note
• Development Guide
• Release Process
• Changelog

Roadmap

Everything under Features is available today. Here is what comes next.

Planned

• PDF and SVG export
• Import of Excalidraw files
• iCloud sync across your Macs
• Performance audit in Instruments: no dropped frames while drawing, panning, and zooming 500+ sketch-style elements
• Full manual QA pass: every tool, resize and rotate, multi-select, the undo chain, closing without saving, reopening, exports, hotkey, Raycast, and URL launch, dark mode, Reduced Motion, and VoiceOver

Not planned

These are out of scope for now, to keep Quikanva fast and focused:

• Accounts or a hosted cloud service
• iOS, iPadOS, Windows, or Linux versions
• Mac App Store distribution
• Plugins and shape libraries
• A full illustration workflow

Have an idea that fits? Open a feature request.

Contributing

Bug reports, focused feature proposals, documentation improvements, and pull requests are welcome. Start with CONTRIBUTING.md, follow the Code of Conduct, and report vulnerabilities through the private process in SECURITY.md.

Check the Roadmap before proposing a feature. Focused contributions that strengthen the native quick-canvas experience are the best fit.

Built with

• Swift 6, SwiftUI, AppKit, Core Graphics, and SwiftData
• A custom vector engine on an AppKit canvas view, used instead of PencilKit because PencilKit's editable canvas is limited to UIKit and Mac Catalyst apps
• Local sketch storage as scene JSON with PNG thumbnails in SwiftData
• KeyboardShortcuts by Sindre Sorhus
• Sparkle for signed in-app updates
• XcodeGen for reproducible project generation

License

Quikanva is available under the MIT License. Copyright © 2026 Mihir Kumar.