8 Best Color Picker Apps and Browser Extensions

A colour picker saves time when you need to capture a shade from a webpage, image, or design reference. This guide is for designers, developers, students, and small-business owners who want a dependable way to sample colours and move the result into their work.

Some options live in a browser, while others are desktop utilities for sampling anywhere on screen. A sampled value is only a starting point: nearby pixels, transparency, and display settings can affect what you capture, so verify important brand colours with an authoritative source.

Quick picks

• Best overall: PowerToys Color Picker — convenient screen sampling for Windows users.
• Best for browser inspection: ColorZilla — a long-running extension with page tools.
• Best for Mac: Digital Color Meter — a built-in utility for desktop sampling.
• Best for design work: Sip — capture and organise colours in a dedicated workflow.

How we picked

We looked for established tools that make sampling and reusing colour values straightforward, with clear platform fit and useful output formats. A picker should save a value reliably without pretending that every sampled colour is an official brand specification. We compared:

• Access: can you sample the browser, desktop, or both?
• Output: are common colour formats easy to copy?
• Organisation: can you keep colours you may need again?
• Practicality: does it fit a normal design or development workflow?
• Limits: is it tied to one browser or operating system?

Browser-first pickers

1. ColorZilla

ColorZilla is a browser extension known for an eyedropper, colour history, and tools for inspecting web-page colours. It is useful when a designer is browsing references and wants to capture a visible pixel without leaving the tab. Sampling is inherently less definitive than a site's source token, and browser access means it is not a universal desktop picker. Free to use.

Best for: web designers collecting page references while researching in a browser.

2. Eye Dropper

Eye Dropper provides a browser-based eyedropper for reading colours from webpages. Its direct, focused purpose suits occasional sampling when opening a full design application would be overkill. It is limited to the browser environment, so it will not replace a system-wide utility when colours come from desktop software or local images. Free to use.

Best for: casual browser users who need to copy a colour value from a page.

3. ColorPick Eyedropper

ColorPick Eyedropper offers an in-browser way to inspect and pick colours, with tools intended for looking closely at rendered web content. It can help when the target is a small icon or subtle border and a normal visual guess is unreliable. Extension behaviour and permissions can differ by browser, so review the listing and grant only what you are comfortable with. Free to use.

Best for: users inspecting small interface details without switching applications.

4. Image Color Picker by PineTools

PineTools' Image Color Picker lets visitors work from an image in a web page to identify a colour at a chosen point. This is handy for extracting a candidate shade from a supplied graphic or photograph without installing software. It is an online utility, not a persistent colour library, and image privacy matters when uploading unreleased work. Free to use.

Best for: one-off sampling from an image when an extension is unnecessary.

Desktop tools for repeated work

5. PowerToys Color Picker

Microsoft PowerToys includes a Color Picker utility that can capture a colour from the Windows screen and copy its value in configured formats. It is convenient for developers moving between a browser, mock-up, and desktop app. It requires installing PowerToys and is specific to Windows, which makes it unsuitable for a mixed platform team as a shared solution. Free and open source.

Best for: Windows users who want a system-level picker close at hand.

6. Digital Color Meter

Digital Color Meter is Apple's built-in macOS utility for reading colours displayed on screen. Because it is already part of the platform, it is a straightforward option for checking a pixel without adding another app. Its interface is more utility-like than a modern palette manager, and it does not provide the same saved-library workflow as dedicated products. Included with macOS.

Best for: Mac users who need a simple, no-extra-install desktop sampler.

7. Sip

Sip is a Mac colour tool designed to capture, organise, and use colours in creative workflows. Its palettes and format options make it more suitable than a bare eyedropper when a designer revisits the same project colours frequently. It is a paid product, so occasional samplers may prefer the built-in meter or browser extensions. Paid, with product details on its site.

Best for: Mac designers who want colour capture and saved palettes together.

8. Just Color Picker

Just Color Picker is a desktop colour picker available for common computer platforms, with colour-code and palette-related features. It works for people who need to sample from more than a browser and prefer a compact dedicated utility. Its interface and operating-system support can vary, so check the current download and platform information before installing. Free to use.

Best for: freelancers wanting a lightweight desktop sampler across different projects.

How to choose the right one

If you only sample website references, start with a browser extension and check its browser permissions. For colours visible in any app, choose a desktop tool that matches your operating system. People who repeatedly work with client palettes will benefit from saved groups and convenient formats; occasional users may be better served by a built-in utility.

Remember that a sampled colour may be affected by a gradient, transparency, image compression, or display scaling. When precision matters, ask for the original brand values rather than estimating them from a screenshot. For a design handoff, record where each value came from and whether it is a background, text colour, or accent; this avoids treating a one-off pixel as a reusable system token. Sample more than one point when a surface appears uneven, and compare the result against the page in its normal state rather than relying on a compressed screenshot. If an extension cannot reach a protected browser page, use a desktop picker instead of installing an unfamiliar workaround. Use Stockio's colour converter to convert a copied value into another format, then test its contrast before assigning it to text or controls. Our colour tools directory has more useful utilities, and the guide to accessible web interfaces explains why colour should not carry meaning alone.

Key takeaways

• Browser extensions are convenient for webpage references; desktop utilities reach more applications.
• Choose based on your operating system and how often you need saved palettes.
• Treat eyedropper results as approximations when the source is an image or effect.
• Check extension permissions and use trusted download sources.
• Verify contrast and confirm official brand values before publishing.