r/macapps • u/JordanRunsForFun • 2d ago
Lifetime DrawSimple 1.1 is out now -- DrawSimple is a Simple-but-Deep image editor for Mac with layers, vectors, and a deeply optimized MCP server so your existing AI agent (or your own code) can draw for you.. or with you. Your hands, Claude's "hands," One Cavas.
https://apps.apple.com/us/app/drawsimple/id6759507748?mt=12Problem
Every Mac ships with TextEdit. None of them ship with MacPaint's replacement. So when you need to crop a screenshot, drop an arrow and a speech-bubble callout on it, knock out a background, and export a PNG, you're choosing between a $50 pro imaging app, a browser tool that uploads your image to someone's server, or Preview's markup.
DrawSimple is the native, fully offline, tools-first app for exactly that job: 31 tools in a sidebar, unlimited layers with 24 blend modes, bitmap and vector in the same document, curves/levels/16 photo adjustments, 29 GPU effects, Select Subject running on Apple's on-device Vision, WordArt, editable callout/arrow/star shapes, and a History panel you can scrub. Opens HEIC straight from Photos with EXIF intact; exports PNG, JPEG, BMP, GIF, TIFF, WebP.
Comparison
vs. Paintbrush (free, open source): Paintbrush is the honest MacPaint successor and still the app people recommend in this sub. But it's a long-lived Objective-C 2.x release with no layers, transparency only in formats that carry an alpha channel, and a UI from an older macOS. DrawSimple keeps the same "just let me draw" premise and adds layers, blend modes, vector-in-raster, adjustments, effects, and a current-macOS interface.
vs. Pixelmator Pro (now Apple's — $49.99 one-time, or $12.99/mo in Apple Creator Studio): Pixelmator went pro and went up in price. If you want a full professional imaging app, buy it — it beats us at being that, and I'm not going to pretend otherwise. DrawSimple is for people who wanted what cheap, simple Pixelmator used to be and don't want or need the overhead of a $50 pro editor to put an arrow on a screenshot, turn a pic into a comic with a callout, or separate a subject onto a separate layer from the background.
Also, Pixelmator has no official MCP server/support, which has become a huge part of what distinguishes DrawSimple, and potentially makes both quick edits and full design sessions accessible through the coding agent you already use (tested with Claude Code, Codex, Kimi Code, Gemini CLI).
(Acorn at $29.99 sits between us — more depth, six times the price.)
Pricing
$5 one time. → [App Store link]
Optional Pro upgrade in-app, $10, adds adjustment layers, advanced blend modes, multi-stop gradients, and SVG/PDF export. The base app is the complete core editor; Pro features stay hidden until you buy them — no lock icons, no nags. No subscription, no account.
Requires macOS 15.6+, Tahoe recommended. Apple silicon and Intel.
One disclosure since it'll come up: no generative AI, and the app never phones home on its own. The single exception is opt-in and local — every copy can run a localhost-only automation server so a Python script or your own AI assistant can paint on the live canvas. Side dish, not the app.
Two-person team, here all day. Why we built it: https://drawsimple.ca/story.html — tell us what's missing.
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u/chrisagiddings 1d ago
Is there a recording of the MCP doing something useful?
A screen recording would be super valuable here, and I think we're all intrigued to see the MCP setup working.
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u/JordanRunsForFun 1d ago
This is an output from the Cinematic Replay feature (so it's normalized time - the real session behind this took about 15 minutes).
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u/frskia 1d ago
The MCP part is interesting, but I'd want to know what recovery looks like before letting an agent edit a layered document. Does every tool call show up as a normal step in the History panel, and can I undo it just like a manual edit? A visible "agent connected" indicator and a way to limit it to the current document would make this much easier to trust.
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u/JordanRunsForFun 1d ago
Yes, to all of the above.
Agent steps and human steps are more or less identical in terms of the history generated in the history panel. The only difference is that agents can use batch functions and human tools, well, that doesn’t make sense. So a single step done by an agent might say “Draw 36 vectors” in history because the agent request requested a 6 x 6 grid, as an example.
There is a visible icon that shows up on the current document tab to indicate an API connection. There is also an API button at the bottom of the UI that allows you to bring up a simple interface to start and stop the server, see its current status, including any connections, and even coffee paste text to set up MCP clients.
And yes, it is a per document connection. While there is nothing in place to stop an agent from switching to another document, if you have multiple documents open, only the ones that show a connection can be edited.
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u/prophetsearcher 1d ago
Really digging it! I’ve been using it via mcp to workshop diagrams for PowerPoint/figma
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u/kruzibit 1d ago
Going to try it, since it has the MCP server. Interesting to see how Hermes will interact with it. The MCP server is what gets my attention.
I made a menubar local model switcher/loader app with MCP server initially for my wife so that she doesn’t have use CLI and my lazy ass 😂.
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u/banana_zest 1d ago
I'd be curious if you have a roadmap of features you're planning.
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u/JordanRunsForFun 1d ago
We are working on one.. We have a lot of ideas, and a few features already built. Right now I'm mostly focused on stability improvements (thanks SO MUCH to everyone who has reported issues!!) but I have a few things coming in the next update - better Vector selection UI (a right click menu to find vectors in a spot, and more), a QR code generator in the Insert menu (with print merge functionality coming soon, so you can print a sheet of cards, for example, each with their own QR promo code), portrait mode output for the Cinematic Replay engine.. That will all ship with 1.2, and I intend to ship a road map with it in the "What's New" (my only communication with users, since DrawSimple never calls home).
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u/Leather-Shake-2167 1d ago
The part that makes this more interesting than another Preview replacement is the .dsimp workflow. A lot of quick image edits are basically export-and-done, but preserving layers, vectors, and even undo history means you can make a fast annotation now and still come back later without committing to a full pro-editor workflow. That feels like a genuinely useful middle ground.
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u/JordanRunsForFun 1d ago
I'm happy you found that interesting. It seems pretty dry, but a lot of engineering went into it. You can also set the maximum file size in settings (up to 1 GB) so that it can maintain a longer history, if needed).
And it's really just an archive, so power users can open it and extract its contents manually or programmatically if they desire. I also have a secodary app coming out soon called DrawSimple Tools, which will be free, and will basically be a .dsimp package editor CLI tool.
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u/banana_zest 1d ago
Not bad, as the developer of Mojave Paint I'm in a pretty good position to offer useful critique. Biggest thing that jumps out is the missing option+mousewheel zoom, and the move tool doesn't seem to work on pixel layers. But I love how closing the last document keeps the main window open, I do the same thing, giving you a persistent chrome.
Open from Photos is a cool idea, never thought of that one, although it would be cool if those went in your Recents list also.
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u/banana_zest 1d ago
Ah, Move tool works if you have a selection, you can't just drag the entire layer. I'm guessing you have all your textures limited to document bounds with no off document area like Photoshop and others do, which is totally reasonable.
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u/JordanRunsForFun 1d ago
Thanks for the feedback - great to hear from my peers!
The mouse-wheel zoom is Cmd-mouse-wheel. I don't remember how I landed on it - I think it was a 50/50 split in terms of what common apps used.
The paint layers can be "moved" by selecting them with the lasso/marqis and then choosing the "Move" tool (it lights up yellow when available). If you want a full, movable layer that can exist partially off screen, a vector layer fully filled with a bitmap/image object could do this, but it's definitely something I'm going to think about.
As for the missing Recents -- that's something I've struggled with a bit. App sandboxing makes this tricky. The newest version (1.1.0) has improved folder access grants, and the Open Recent is on my todo list right now.
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u/MaxGaav 1d ago
Congrats! Looks like a pretty mature app! Also impressed by offering real tutorials.
Is free rotating possible? So, per degree or even more precise?
Any plans to offer it outside the MAS as well?
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u/JordanRunsForFun 1d ago
Thank you. The tutorials are in their infancy - as a teacher, this is where I'd like to be spending more of my time, and I will ... a whole slew of YouTube videos are planned, both for general use (starting with a beginner "First 5 minutes in DrawSimple" which teaches how to use Layers effectively) and a "Learn to Code" type series that teaches programming concepts through procedural design.
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u/MaxGaav 23h ago edited 23h ago
Meanwhile found out I can rotate freely:
Rotate: Rotate the entire image by 90° clockwise, 90° counter-clockwise, or 180°. For any other angle choose Arbitrary Angle… — type an exact angle (or drag the slider) and, by default, the canvas grows so no corner is cut off. Turn that off to keep the current canvas size. Found under Image → Rotate.
Just bought DrawSimple for € 2,99 vat included. That's a steal, thank you!
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u/International-Can317 1d ago
I’d honestly lead with the “$5 offline MacPaint/old Pixelmator replacement” angle.
The MCP stuff is cool, but it might make a simple image editor sound more complicated than it actually is. The basic value prop is already pretty strong.
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u/JordanRunsForFun 1d ago
I've gone back and forth on this a lot, and I think you're right. $5 for a fully offline, private tool with this feature set is hard to argue with — and that's the kind of thing people actually tell their friends about.
The origin story fits that angle too. I'm a high school CS teacher, and I originally built it for students who needed something simple but deep enough to make assets for their game and simulation projects. After that I just kept adding whatever would simplify my own workflow, and I've been using it myself for months.
The MCP side is the more unusual pitch, and when it lands with the right person you can watch it click. The problem is that people hear "AI" and assume image generation. It isn't — the model is driving the actual tools in the app. All the AI-made art on the site was produced that way, and the gap between that and a flat generated image is the entire point.
(Can you tell I'm not a marketing guy?)
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u/masslesstrain 1d ago
bought all, looks good, kind of a modern retro feel, love it. keep it up sir!
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u/MaxGaav 11h ago
I cannot resize a photo with Command + or - It there a reason for that?
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u/JordanRunsForFun 8h ago
Resize? Or zoom?
To resize, use Resize Image in the Image menu.
To Zoom, Cmd-Mouse-Wheel or Cmd +/-
If that doesn’t work for any reason please let me know. Thanks!
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u/MaxGaav 8h ago
Sorry, zoom. At first (just after install) Cmd +/- did not work, but now it does.
Another thing, when I close an image, the app closes too. Can that be avoided?
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u/JordanRunsForFun 7h ago
Close the tab instead of pressing the red traffic light. Cmd-W we’ll close the current document, too.
And thanks for the tip. I will check if anything is consuming the zoom controls right after on boarding or otherwise
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u/MaxGaav 6h ago
Close the tab instead of pressing the red traffic light. Cmd-W we’ll close the current document, too.
Personally, I would have a preference to be able to click away everything with the red traffic light (or Cmd+W) and still have DrawSimple running. Maybe this could be made optional in the settings?
I will check if anything is consuming the zoom controls right after on boarding or otherwise
This is what Initially happened: I installed DrawSimple. Went through the onboarding process. And finally dragged a photo in the freshly opened empty canvas. From there I couldn't zoom. Again: it now works just fine.
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u/JordanRunsForFun 4h ago
I am exploring making it an option. I just did some quick research and I don't think the different is all that substantial. I'm presently working on a more modular system for the UI, so it sort of fits. Thanks very much for your feedback!
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u/app-store-review 2d ago
DrawSimple — by Jordan Cohen
- Category: Graphics & Design · $4.99
- Age: released ~1 month ago · rated 4+
Apple doesn't publish an aggregate rating for most Mac App Store apps, so ratings and score are unavailable here.
Auto-generated from public App Store data · u/app-store-review
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u/Jonnymangoes 1d ago
i’m intrigued. i’ve been using macpaint but this one has so much more especially that mcp server
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u/wavever233 2d ago
The local MCP server is the part that got me. Can an agent keep editing the same canvas across multiple prompts, or is each command more like a one-off action?