Support

Answers to the questions people ask most. Still stuck? Write to us.

Allow Screen Recording for the magnifier

The zoomed magnifier shows the pixels around your pointer, enlarged with a grid and a live color code. To read those pixels, macOS needs the Screen Recording permission. Without it you can still pick colors, but only with the basic system picker.

Open System Settings › Privacy & Security › Screen & System Audio Recording. The quickest way: in Hex Marks the Spot, choose Screen Recording Permission… from the Help menu or from the menu you get by right-clicking the menu bar icon, then click Open Screen Recording Settings. That goes straight there and adds Hex Marks the Spot to the list.
Switch on Hex Marks the Spot. If it is not in the list, click + under the list and choose it from Applications.
When macOS asks, choose Quit & Reopen. If it does not ask, quit Hex Marks the Spot and open it again.

To check, open the app’s Settings page. Under Magnifier it says “Screen Recording is allowed.” once the permission is on.

Hex Marks the Spot uses the permission only to magnify the pixels around your pointer while you pick. Nothing is recorded, saved or sent anywhere. The app has no network access at all.

Questions

What happens if I don’t allow Screen Recording?

Picking still works. The first time you pick without the permission, the app explains what it is for and offers three ways on: Open System Settings, Continue with basic picker, or Show me how. This note appears only once; after that, picks use the basic picker without asking. The basic picker is the loupe built into macOS. Everything else, from the color formats to history, palettes and the contrast checker, works the same either way.

I allowed it, but the magnifier still doesn’t appear.

macOS applies the change only after the app restarts. Right-click the menu bar icon, choose Quit Hex Marks the Spot, and open Hex Marks the Spot again.

I skipped the permission. How do I switch the magnifier on later?

Open Settings and look under Magnifier: Open Screen Recording Settings goes straight to the right place in System Settings, and Show me how shows the steps. The same window opens from Screen Recording Permission… in the Help menu. Then follow the steps at the top of this page.

Where is the app? I don’t see it in the Dock.

It lives in the menu bar, as an eyedropper icon. Left-click it to pick a color; right-click it for a menu with your recent colors, Settings, Help and Quit. If you prefer a Dock icon, switch on Keep app in the Dock in Settings. At least one of the two, menu bar icon or Dock, always stays on, so you can’t lose the app.

⌃⌥9 does nothing.

Another app probably uses the same key combination. When that happens, the app’s Settings and Quick Help show a note such as “⌃⌥9 is in use by another app, so it does nothing here.” Change the shortcut in the other app, or start a pick from the menu bar icon instead. The shortcuts only work while Hex Marks the Spot is running; switch on Launch at login in Settings to keep it ready.

Which color formats can I copy?

HEX without #, HEX with #, RGB values, RGB percentages, CSS rgb(), CSS hsl(), HSB, CMYK, SwiftUI Color and NSColor. In Settings, under “Color to copy”, choose the formats for copy buttons A and B. Button A’s format is also the one used when a picked color is copied automatically.

How do I stop the app from copying every pick?

Switch off Copy picked color to clipboard in Settings. The app then writes to the clipboard only when you click a copy button.

Picked, Scratchpad, Favorites, Palettes: what’s the difference?

Picked is the automatic history of every color you sampled, newest first. Scratchpad is a staging area you fill with the + button and then turn into a palette. Favorites holds the colors and palettes you kept with the heart. Palettes lists every palette you saved.

The history keeps your last 500 picks. “Clear picked colors” empties it but spares anything on the scratchpad or in your favorites.

How do I make a palette from an image?

Open the Palettes page and drop an image on the drop zone, or click the zone to choose a file. The app pulls out the image’s main colors; the stepper sets how many, from 2 to 12. Click Save palette to name and keep it. Until you save, it is not kept.

What does the contrast checker tell me?

Whether text in one color is readable on a background of another. The big number is the contrast ratio, from 1 (invisible) to 21 (black on white). The four badges are the WCAG levels: normal text needs 4.5 for AA and 7 for AAA; large text needs 3 and 4.5.

Where are my colors stored? Do they sync?

On your Mac only, in a file inside the app’s own sandbox folder (~/Library/Containers/de.keitgen.ColorPicker). Time Machine backs it up like any other file. There is no account and no sync between Macs.

How do I share a palette?

Use the share button on a saved palette. It sends the palette as plain text, its name followed by the hex codes, so anyone can read it with or without the app.

Which macOS version do I need?

macOS 26 or later.

How do I get a refund?

Purchases and refunds are handled by Apple. Request a refund at reportaproblem.apple.com.

Contact

The quickest way: in Hex Marks the Spot, choose Contact Support… from the Help menu. It opens an e-mail to us with your Mac model, macOS version, app version and settings already filled in, so we can help faster. You see all of it before you send, and you can delete any part.

Or write to support at keitgen dot de directly. Then it helps if you mention your macOS version and the app version, which the About window shows.