I just need to edit this image.

Etch is a fast, simple, native image editor for Linux and macOS, and in preview for Windows, closer to Paint than to Photoshop. Open a PNG, JPEG, or BMP, draw with the pencil, brush, fill, lines, rectangles, ellipses, and text, select and move pixels, copy and paste with other apps, crop, resize, rotate, and flip, then save. Every step undoes.

Download
  • FamiliarTools on the left, colours at the bottom, Paint's keys: P, B, E, F, T, S, X.
  • ImmediateA stroke on an 8K image draws in about a millisecond a frame.
  • Sharp up closePixels stay square from 100% to 3200%.

Install

For your user, no sudo, on Linux or a Mac. Run the command again to update.

curl -fsSL https://this-site/install.sh | sh

On Linux it installs the app and its menu entry; start it from your app menu or with etch. It makes Etch the default app for PNG, JPEG, and BMP images, so double-clicking one opens it in Etch; other file types keep their apps, and removing Etch drops its defaults. It needs GTK 4, which GNOME desktops have; otherwise the installer says how to get it.

On a Mac with Apple Silicon and macOS 14 or later, it puts Etch in your Applications folder, with everything it needs inside. PNG, JPEG, and BMP images list Etch under Open With; to open them with Etch by default, select one in Finder, then File > Get Info > Open with > Change All.

To remove it:

curl -fsSL https://this-site/install.sh | sh -s -- --uninstall

On Windows 10 and 11, 64-bit (a preview): for your user, no admin rights. Paste this into PowerShell; run it again to update.

irm https://this-site/install.ps1 | iex

It puts Etch in your user's Programs folder, with everything it needs inside, and in the Start menu. PNG, JPEG, and BMP images list Etch under Open with, and Windows keeps your default apps; to open them with Etch by default, right-click one, then Open with > Choose another app > Etch > Always.

To remove it, use Settings > Apps > Installed apps, or:

& ([scriptblock]::Create((irm https://this-site/install.ps1))) -Uninstall

Downloads

  • No release published yet

From the DMG: open it and drag Etch to Applications. Etch isn't notarized by Apple yet, so the first time you open it macOS says it can't check it. On macOS 15 or later, open System Settings > Privacy & Security and click Open Anyway beside Etch's name; on macOS 14, Control-click Etch in Applications and choose Open. Or run this once in Terminal:

xattr -dr com.apple.quarantine /Applications/Etch.app

From Setup.exe: Etch isn't signed yet, so when you open it Windows may say “Windows protected your PC”. Click More info, then Run anyway. Setup installs for your user and asks for no admin rights.

The install commands need none of this: what curl and PowerShell download isn't flagged. Check a download against its sha256 with shasum -a 256 on a Mac, sha256sum on Linux, or Get-FileHash in PowerShell.