# Pixely: Pixel Art for Everyone — Easy, Powerful Pixel Artistry

> Feature-rich pixel art and image editor for all skill levels. (iPhone/iPad app by Mark Marchione.)

- Source: https://appshunter.io/ios/app/pixely-pixel-art-for-everyone/id620956869 (this page in markdown: same URL + `.md`)
- Developer: [Mark Marchione](https://appshunter.io/developer/311697142)
- Category: Graphics & Design, Photo & Video
- Price: $1.99
- Rating: 4.00/5 from 16 App Store ratings · 57 written reviews indexed
- Age rating: 4+
- Requires: iOS 9.0 · 31 MB
- Languages: American English
- Released: 2013-03-21
- Data updated: 2026-06-10
- Monetization: paid
- User reviews in markdown: https://appshunter.io/ios/app/pixely-pixel-art-for-everyone/id620956869/reviews.md

## What is Pixely?

Pixely is the easiest way to make amazing pixel art.

"This is the best, and easiest to use pixel art app on the iPad. The UI is clean, the canvas is clear. This is the app I've been looking for." ~ John the artist, US App Store

"Perfect for everything I use it for. Money very well spent." ~ Chase game, UK App Store

"I'm super happy with this application so far... this one has the most features geared towards making pixel art that I need! The onion skin is terrific for making sprites for my game while I sit away from my computer. Keep up the fantastic work!" ~ WSDragon, Canada App Store

A feature-rich and friendly pixel art and pixel-level image editor made for everyone from the dabbling game art fan to the experienced artist, and anyone in between!

-- A Flexible Workspace --
• Edit huge canvases up to 4096x4096 pixels
• Adjustable canvas sizes let you change the number of columns and rows, with or without scaling - it's your choice: unlike other apps, scaling up linearly (2x, 3x, etc.) will not distort your colors
• Bookmark up to 40 colors per canvas (50 on iPad Pro 10.5, 75 on iPad Pro 12.9) and create reusable palettes of up to 272 colors
• Helpful descriptions are available for every button and screen
• Undo/redo for each canvas, up to 120x zooming, customizable grid sizes, flip and rotate canvases, and more!
• Pixely's Art Viewer allows for quick and accurate enlarged or tiled previews, with care taken to scale art proportionally, preventing distortion and unwanted color changes
• Use your canvases as layers or animation frames, each with their own opacity. Making layered art and animated GIFs has never been easier!
• But wait... there's also Apple Pencil support, onion skinning, a mirrored UI mode, custom app tinting, and more...

-- Highly Portable Artwork --
• Load and save art files, which include bookmarked colors, with support for folders.
• Preview your art files as thumbnails before you open them
• Artwork is continuously saved as you make changes, so you can focus on creating instead of saving. In fact, your entire session is restored when you re-open the app
• Import images from your camera, Photos app, or the iOS clipboard
• Import and export animated GIFs
• Export one or many canvases all at once to your app files, Dropbox, photos, email, Facebook, and Twitter

-- Create & Curate Colors --
• Pixely supports every RGB/HSB color with opacity/alpha channels
• Start simple… select your colors from a rainbow of 234 evenly spread presets
• Go pro… edit any color using sliders and brightness toggles
• Be consistent… create palettes of up to 272 colors that you can load, save, and share
• Import colors to get the exact shades that inspire you from your canvases and images
• Quickly manage palette and bookmark colors
• Select from recently used colors
• Game Devs: Create a retro 8-bit or 16-bit effect by automatically color-reducing canvases to only use colors from your palettes!

-- A Dynamic Toolset --
• Flexible drawing tools allow you to create art using variable-size pencil, freeform line, rectangle, and fill tools, all with optional symmetry
• Shading (Burn/Dodge): Add or remove shading uniformly or randomly using any drawing tool
• Multiple paste modes with easy drag-drop previewing, or use copied pixels like a brush, precision paste using a game-like control pad, or easily create patterns for dithering effects
• Replace Color: Change all pixels of one color to another color
• Eyedropper: Set the current color by selecting one from any pixel
• Shift: Easily shift the pixels on an entire canvas to make room for new sections

We love using Pixely and want you to enjoy it as much as we do. Please recommend any features or report bugs to hi@pixely.info or @PixelyApp on Twitter!

Privacy Policy: Pixely does not collect any data at all, unless Dropbox is used. This data is collected by Dropbox and is not used by the app developer. See 'App Privacy' for more info or https://pixely.app/privacy.

## Key features

- Large canvas sizes up to 4096x4096
- Adjustable canvas dimensions
- Extensive color palette management
- Onion skinning for animation
- Import/export animated GIFs
- Apple Pencil support
- Continuous auto-saving

## Recent user reviews (10 of 57)

All indexed reviews: https://appshunter.io/ios/app/pixely-pixel-art-for-everyone/id620956869/reviews.md

### 5/5 — sweet!

*2025-12-01, version 15.0*

really nice pixel art app that can export animated gifs.

### 1/5 — Usabilty from hell

*2025-05-30, version 15.0*

Die App ist ziemlich konfus aufgebaut. Das fängt mit dem neu Erstellen an, geht über das suspekte Farbpalettenverhalt der Ebenen, bis hin zum nicht Einstellen können der Größe der Zeichenfläche. 

Man kann die Größe der Zeichenfläche nicht ändern. Möchte man eine Animation erstellen, muss man die Farben in jedem Frame erneut suchen und setzen. Das Setzen der Farbe in die Farbpalette ist einfach nur krampfig. Man kann nicht einfach eine neue Datei anlegen. Auch das Laden von bestehenden Bildern ist sehr umständlich. Da werden auch nur Teile geladen. Dabei fällt dann erst auf, dass man zuvor gespeicherte Daten plötzlich nicht mehr vorliegen hat. 

Ich kann die App zum Erstellen von Pixel Art Grafiken nicht empfehlen. Es gibt zu viele Beschränkungen und zu wenige Möglichkeiten.

### 5/5 — Great At What It Does

*2022-01-26, version 13.0*

I’ve used a number of small graphics applications on the iPad (or iPhone), and none of them ever seem to do it all.  Most are just easy, obvious clones of each other with the standard functionality, using your photos (camera roll) to (inadequately) do the heavy lifting of managing files, and littering your photos with junk in the process.

Real work (even hobby work) requires something more, and Pixely provides just enough interaction with files and iCloud, and copy/paste with other apps, to make it really useful in creating pixel-based art.  It has almost all of the tools one needs to create small pixel drawings (I mostly use it for 32 or 64 pixel wide icon-like images for games), including animated sequences.

It obviously can’t do everything… I need other tools to migrate my Pixely work into a finished product and refine it further (such as creating crowded sprite sheets, which I could do in Pixely, but it is just more easily done on my Mac).  But it lets me comfortably and efficiently generate a pretty refined first step in the process.

There’s very little I’d change about Pixely, except perhaps to provide some online documentation, and an ability to move a selection instead of only copy/paste (and maybe a cut in addition to copy)… and maybe an option to export a collection of images into a single sprite sheet.  The UI is a little rough around the edges, and not always entirely intuitive, but it’s all there, you can figure it out with practice, it all works, and it gets the job done.

Pixely is definitely one of the few apps I rate highly (or at all), and one of the very, very few that I have been using for years and keep going back to.

### 3/5 — Confused

*2019-07-13, version 12.5*

This app looks really nice besides I can’t find out how to make a new drawing. I don’t know if I’m just missing something but I’ve been trying to figure it out for an hour. I also don’t know how to choose the amount of pixels I want in the canvas.

### 5/5 — Best editor i’ve tried so far

*2019-03-14, version 12.5*

A great pixel editor having most of the tools you need compared to most of the free editors i’ve tried on ios (which were over 15 and 2 paid) and most importantly compared to a lot of editors i’ve seen, this has been updated more frequently which is reassuring as not being a dead project.

There are some things i think are missing (or just didn’t find it in the while i spent on the app, first being a color wheel to choose and adjust colors from it (at least i think it makes picking a color faster and then adjust it with the sliders), an option to index an image would be great
A selection movement tool would be useful, having a cut option would complement it.
Also a better pen support with palm rejection and only draw with the pen since a few times when i tried to zoom or move the canvas i’d end up drawing lines accidentally

An option to have unrestricted canvas mode would be great, like right now the canvas locks onto the ipad screen edge or the tool menu edge when you’re zoomed in, i try to keep the part I’m working on in the middle of the screen so when working on the canvas borders it limits you to work on the screen edge.
the app could use some extra gesture like dragging two fingers on the screen to move the canvas, 3 fingers swipe forward/back to redo/undo

3/7/19
the app crashed when i was selecting pixels using the rectangle tool when i repeatedly tried to select an area beginning from outside the canvas (was trying it out for the first time)
3/14/19
the multiple paste tool has a glitch that happens if you’ve been on the app for a while where it enters the mode but won’t let you paste anything or exit the mode which forces you to close the app, also I’ve had multiple crashes while in the copy mode and using the toggle color tool, happened when activating a color by mistake and disabling it after

### 5/5 — Great app!

*2019-03-07, version 12.5*

I was looking for a functional, nice looking but not unnecessarily flashy app for spriting fun, and this fits the bill perfectly. Nice feature set and intuitive - top work!

### 5/5 — Amazing but..

*2018-12-19, version 12.4*

Love this app been using it for a good couple years but recently if I draw something with symmetry then undo one side of the symmetry stays, any possible fix?

### 3/5 — Almost 5 stars

*2018-11-15, version 12.3*

This app NEEDS to support split view on the iPad. It would be great to have a reference photo from safari or the photos app next to the canvas. Also 11 inch iPad Pro aspect ratio support would be amazing. Otherwise great app with desktop class tools

### 1/5 — HORRIBLE

*2018-10-31, version 12.3*

I used to use this app years ago to edit images at the pixel level.

Now, it DOES NOT allow loading photos from any photo album.  This has to be the only graphics app for the iPad that does not access photos!!!    That is ridiculous!!!   Drag and drop does not work either.

This app has taken a few steps backwards.   😔😔😔😔😔

### 2/5 — I can’t import photos?

*2018-02-06, version 10.0*

When I try to import a photo to edit on the app it exits me out? I tried everything. Deleting and getting again, turning off my device then back on, closing the slide. Not sure what happened but It used to work.

## Frequently asked questions about Pixely

### What is Pixely?

Pixely is a pixel art and image editor designed for users of all skill levels. It provides a flexible workspace, powerful drawing tools, and extensive color management features to help you create professional-looking pixel art and animated GIFs.

### What are the key features of Pixely?

Key features include large canvas sizes up to 4096x4096, adjustable canvas dimensions, extensive color palette management with up to 272 colors, onion skinning for animation, Apple Pencil support, and the ability to import and export animated GIFs.

### How much does Pixely cost?

The provided information indicates that Pixely is a paid application and does not have in-app purchases or ads, suggesting a one-time purchase price.

### What devices is Pixely compatible with?

While specific OS versions aren't listed, the description mentions iPad Pro models and iOS clipboard support, indicating compatibility with iOS devices, particularly iPads.

### Who would benefit from using Pixely?

Pixely is beneficial for game developers creating retro assets, artists looking for a dedicated pixel art tool, and anyone wanting to create animated GIFs or digital illustrations with a pixelated aesthetic.

## Version history (last 5 releases)

### 15.0 — 2022-05-22

• Improved line drawing tool
• You can now switch between scaled and original preview sizes in the Art Viewer
• Additional small bug fixes

Please note that this will be the last version that supports Dropbox, as we plan to support only iCloud for cloud storage in the future.

As always, thanks for using Pixely!

### 14.0 — 2022-02-03

* "Paste and Shift" has returned! You can once again paste copied pixels and then move them using a control pad to put them in an exact position.
* Better support for iPad Mini (2021)
* Several bug fixes

Please note that this will be the last version that supports Dropbox, as we plan to support only iCloud for cloud storage in the future.

As always, thanks for using Pixely!

### 13.0 — 2020-08-06

Pixely 13.0 is finally here and it contains several bug fixes of various sizes. There's also a new setting, "Use One Zoom Level", which lets you keep the same zoom level when switching canvases, and a few UI fixes for new iPad sizes and recent versions of iOS.

Any questions or requests? Just reach out to hi@pixely.app!

### 12.5 — 2018-12-22

12.5:
Fixed a few more bugs that crept up when using symmetry.

12.4:
Just more bug fixes; updated site links. The next feature update is coming later this month!

### 12.4 — 2018-12-08

Just more bug fixes; updated site links. The next feature update is coming later this month!

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*Data collected daily from the US App Store and indexed by [AppsHunter](https://appshunter.io/). User reviews are verbatim App Store reviews. Ratings, prices and chart positions refresh continuously; this snapshot is from 2026-06-10.*
