Filedot Star Best !exclusive! Today

filedot star bestfiledot star best

“This One Still Works” by waneella.

Pixaki is the best pixel art app for iPad. It packs a whole load of features into a clean, modern interface, and it works great with Apple Pencil. So now you can make game sprites on the couch, animated backgrounds on your commute, or music videos in the park.

Filedot Star Best !exclusive! Today

There are bigger lights out there—flashier tech, louder breakthroughs—but the Filedot Star remains the best kind of companion: modest, persistent, and capable of turning ordinary darkness into the kind of light that helps people find their way back to themselves.

In the scrub-brushed plains where the horizon goes on forever, the Filedot Star is not a star at all but a small, stubborn flame of invention. Born from a tinkerer’s notebook and the loneliness of long nights, the Filedot is an object of contradictions: unassuming and miraculous; humble in size but outsized in consequence. A story in a dot They say the Filedot began as an experiment: a dot of metal alloy, thinner than a coin, fused with a lattice of glass that held light like a secret. When activated, it emitted a cool, steady glow—one that seemed to sort the darkness rather than simply push it aside. Farmers mounted Filedots along furrows and found a rhythm in their work; artists placed them on canvases and watched colors rearrange themselves under the new light. It did not blind or glare. It invited attention, coaxing small truths out of shadow. The best small things do more than shine What makes the Filedot Star “best” isn’t brightness or novelty alone. It’s the way the dot rewrites relationships. A Filedot on a windowsill became a place for whispered confessions; one on a bedside table slowed the hurried scrawl of a late-night writer into thoughtful sentences. In classrooms, a single Filedot at the teacher’s desk steadied distracted eyes; in cafes, couples discovered conversations that had been missing. The Filedot’s glow was a common denominator, a gentle unifier that elevated ordinary moments into ones people later called “bookmarked.” Craft and myth woven together Crafters learned to make Filedots from scraps: a sliver of recycled glass, a core of repurposed circuitry, and a thin coat of something like patience. Each dot gathered its own history—the hands that shaped it, the places it had been. Folk tales grew around them. Children whispered that if you pinned three Filedots to a map and pressed them with a wish, the map would untangle the quickest route to any honest destination. Even skeptics admitted the devices created a certain kind of luck: not the dramatic kind, but the steady sort that nudges choices toward better days. A small revolution The Filedot Star’s influence spread quietly. Urban planners used them to soften the glare of city nights; biologists used patterns of Filedot placement to study insect behavior without startling creatures with harsh lights. Startups built lightweight lanterns around the core idea—precision light for human-scale moments. The Filedot taught designers a principle that became a design axiom: the best technology should fit human rhythms, not force them to change. Looking at one now Hold one in your palm and notice how it feels like a lens not just for sight but for attention. Its glow is not an answer but an invitation, a small promise that something overlooked might be worth seeing. In a world that applauds the spectacular, the Filedot Star is proof that the quiet and deliberate can be the most transformative. filedot star best

Layers of animation.

Layers are now shared across the whole project, which means every layer has its own timeline. You can add as many layers and frames as your iPad can handle.

filedot star bestfiledot star best

“Undertone” by waneella.

  • filedot star best

    Static image layers

    Use for background and foreground elements that are the same on every frame.

  • filedot star best

    Blend modes

    Composite layers using 18 different blend modes to create colour effects and adjustments.

  • filedot star best

    Organise

    Group and name layers. Use drag and drop to reorder layers and frames.

  • filedot star best

    Scrubbable timeline

    Preview your animations by sliding the timeline to see the canvas update instantly.

  • filedot star best

    Onion skinning

    Preview up to ten frames, and choose from three different colour tint modes.

  • filedot star best

    Bulk actions

    Select multiple layers or frames at once to quickly make bulk adjustments.

Pixel over your sketches and photos.

Pixaki’s reference layers allow you to import any image from your photo library or Files at full resolution, resize and reposition it on the canvas, then draw pixels over the top. You can have as many reference layers per project as you like. Adjust the opacity to draw underneath the image if you prefer.

filedot star best

“Yeti House” by Genuine Human Art.

Master colour.

Whether you’re working with a palette of 16 colours or 16 million, Pixaki gives you everything you need to pick and modify the colours for your art.

Colour panel

The colour panel has four different modes for chosing the exact colour your want: a square picker with an infinitely scrolling hue slider, sliders for HSB and RGB, hex code input, and the project palette.

filedot star bestfiledot star best

“Distorted” by waneella.

  • filedot star best

    Eyedropper

    Sample any colour from the canvas, optionally including reference images.

  • filedot star best

    Bucket fill

    Quickly fill large areas of the same colour. The fill can be contiguous or discontiguous.

  • filedot star best

    Colour replace

    Change all instances of any colour on the current cel, layer, or the whole project.

Select any way.

Selection is vastly improved in Pixaki 4, with new powerful tools and capabilities that rival any other image editor.

filedot star bestfiledot star best

“Kiki & Jiji” by Chelsea Faust.

  • filedot star best

    Freehand

    Works as both a lasso and a polygonal lasso, allowing you to select any shape possible.

  • filedot star best

    Rectangular

    Use to select rectangluar areas. It’s simple, but sometimes simple is best.

  • filedot star best

    Colour

    Quickly selection regions of the same colour, either contiguous or discontiguous.

  • filedot star best

    Transform

    You can add and subtract selections, as well as scale, stretch, and reposition them.

  • filedot star best

    Mask

    Keep the selection active, and all painting will be masked to the selected area.

  • filedot star best

    Pasteboard

    Cut or copy the selected pixels and paste them to any app that supports pasting images.

Transform.

Move and manipulate anything on your canvas; selected pixels, pasted images, or the whole layer.

filedot star bestfiledot star best

“Skesis Castle” by rachels_ham.

  • filedot star best

    Move

    Move without needing to select. Position the image on or off the canvas without clipping.

  • filedot star best

    Resize

    Scale from the corners to keep the aspect ratio, or from the sides to squash and stretch.

  • filedot star best

    Rotate and flip

    Rotate by any angle or in 90º increments, and flip horizontally and vertically.

Import. Export. Repeat.

Whether you want to add finishing touches in After Effects, or continue working on your Photoshop projects on the move, Pixaki plays really well with other software. You can also use magnification when sharing to social media without the results looking blurry.

  • filedot star best

    Images

    Export the current frame or all frames as individual images. Import just about any image.

    • Import
    • Export
    • Magnify
  • filedot star best

    Export image

    Export your animation as a GIF or animated PNG. Importing GIFs is also supported.

    • Import
    • Export
    • Magnify
  • filedot star best

    Movie

    Output your animation as a QuickTime movie with a range of codec options.

    • Export
    • Magnify
  • filedot star best

    Sprite sheet

    Perfect for use in your game, with a configurable number of columns.

    • Export
    • Magnify
  • filedot star best

    Aseprite

    Move between Pixaki and the popular desktop pixel art app, maintaining layers and cels.*

    • Import
    • Export
  • filedot star best

    Photoshop

    Import and export layered PSDs. The layers for each frame are put into groups.

    • Import
    • Export

Created exclusively for iPad and iPad Pro.

Pixaki takes full advantage of iPad hardware and software to deliver something fast, powerful, and intuitive that feels at home on your iPad.

  • filedot star best

    iCloud Drive

    Full support lets you store your projects in the cloud and even collaborate with others.

  • filedot star best

    Canvases up to 2MP

    Create canvases up to 2 megapixels, meaning you can work in full HD 1080p.

  • filedot star best

    Metal

    All the heavy lifting is done with the full power of the iPad’s graphics cores using Metal.

  • filedot star best

    Files

    Manage your projects from the Files app and open them in Pixaki with a single tap.

  • filedot star best

    Split view

    Split view multitasking support is great for viewing tutorials and references while creating.

  • filedot star best

    Apple Pencil

    The most natural way to draw pixel art. Supports double tap gestures on the Apple Pencil 2.

Top notch support.

Hi, I’m Luke and I’m the solo developer behind Pixaki. If you need any help with the app, if you come across bugs, or if you have any feature suggestions, please get in touch — I aim to respond within a couple of working days or sooner.

If you’ve made something cool in Pixaki or just want to chat about pixel art, I’d also love to hear from you.

  • filedot star best

    User guide

    There’s an extensive user guide here where you can learn about every aspect of the app.

  • filedot star best

    Email

    Send me an email anytime — my address is .

  • filedot star best

    Discord

    Join the Pixaki server to chat with other artists and get support from me too.

  • filedot star best

    Mastodon

    Mention or message @pixaki@mastodon.social for support or to show off your art. Follow for inspiration.

  • filedot star best

    Bluesky

    The app is also pixaki.bsky.social on Bluesky.

  • filedot star best

    Instagram

    If you’re on Instagram, you can contact me using @pixakiapp.

Something for everyone.

Pixaki comes in two versions; Intro, which is completely free, and Pro.

filedot star best

Intro

Great for anyone starting out with pixel art. Completely free with no time limits or ads.

  • filedot star best

    3 layers, plus 1 reference layer.

  • filedot star best

    8 frames of animation.

  • filedot star best

    160 × 160 px maximum canvas size.

  • filedot star best

    Basic import and export formats.

Download on App Store
filedot star best

Pro

Perfect for professional artists and game creators. Create pixel art without restrictions.

  • filedot star best

    Unlimited layers and references.

  • filedot star best

    Unlimited animation frames.

  • filedot star best

    Up to 2 megapixel canvas size.

  • filedot star best

    Advanced import and export, including Aseprite* and Photoshop PSD.

Buy on App Store

Stay updated.

Sign up to the Pixaki newletter to receive very infrequent emails about new features and app releases.