# New

New Synth Fill tool, which you can use to brush away unwanted objects in your photos.
New Repair tool, which you can use to spot heal and touch up photos. It works by looking at the pixels around the area and with the magic of pattern matching, fills in a nice little patch for you.
You can now resize multiple selected bitmap layers at once, even with a selection.
New Expand Selection option in the Selection palette, which lets you non-destructively expand the current selection by a set number of pixels. (Finally.)
A new Temperature and Tint filter, which will help color correct overly warm or cool photos.
A new High Pass filter, which keeps the edge details of your image and flattens everything else to gray. Useful for sharpening when blended with the original using Overlay.
A new Edge Stroke filter, which adds a colored stroke around the transparent edges of your image.
A new Color Overlay filter, which adds a colored overlay on top of your layer, with opacity and blend mode settings.
When opening up a SVG file, you are now given options to set the DPI, width, and height of the resulting image (defaulting of course to what it would be if natively read at 72dpi). This new import window also gives you the option to rasterize the SVG file right away, which will use WebKit to render the SVG instead of converting it into native Acorn shape layer objects.

# Other

Photoshop image import improvements: Support for reading 16 bit per channel PSD files, grayscale PSDs, and the Color Overlay layer effect.
Various SVG importing and exporting improvements, including bitmap layers being written out to SVG files.
When exporting as SVG, layer names are now preserved with the id attribute in the layer’s group tag.
There’s a new menu item under the Help menu named What’s New in Acorn that loads up the latest release notes for you. It’ll automatically show once if you’re using the App Store version of Acorn. This also replaces the “Show Release Notes” menu item which would open a the notes in a browser window.
The Flood Fill (paint bucket / color fill) tool has a new blend mode: “Copy (Opaque Only)”, which works like the Copy blend mode, but won’t replace all the pixels in your layer, just the ones that are being filled.
The Paste and Match Style menu item is no longer hidden behind an option key. And you can now use it to make new Shape Layers if you have text on the clipboard.
Moved the option for JPEG 2000 down the list in the Export window, as Apple depreciated it a while back (though it still works for now!).
New Action Bar action “Disable All Snapping” which will turn off all snapping options for the open image. Also, did you know that ⌘⇧⌥; works as a toggle disable all snapping as well? So if you want it all off for a little while, that’s a nice shortcut to remember.

# Fixes

Acorn’s Export window now disables the progressive option when JPEG 2000 is selected as the format, since the encoder doesn’t support it. Also fixed a bug related to this where the preview would not update correctly when the progressive option was toggled for formats that support it.
Fixed some printing problems where images might have too much whitespace around the margins.
Fixed a bug where using the poly select tool on shape layers wasn’t always very accurate.
Fixed a problem where two saved brushes with the same name would have loading conflicts.
Fixed a problem where the HEIC encoder would not work correctly in web export if you had "embed profile" turned off and a non-RGB color profile selected. The fix was to always embed the profile in this case.
Fixed an issue where layers with masks would not appropriately allow mouse click throughs to layers below them.
Fixed an issue where older web export presets would save with a strange aspect ratio when the File ▸ Export ▸ Export With Preset ▸ menu items were used.
General stability improvements.

Acorn 8.6.3

September 10th, 2026.

# New Stuff

Support for MacOS 27 Golden Gate.

Acorn 8.6.2

August 24th, 2026.

# New Stuff

The `acorn` shell tool now has a `-screenshot` argument which tells Acorn to take a layered screenshot of all your open windows. You can pass the `-delay` argument with a number of seconds to wait before taking the screenshot, and you can also pass the `-appname` argument to only include windows from the named app.

Running `acorn -h` will give a full list of available options.
Acorn’s Dock menu now has an option to take a layered screenshot. This is pretty handy because you can have all your windows exactly how you want them, and then control click on Acorn in the Dock to take your screenshot without any windows losing focus.

# Changes

Filter presets previously didn’t respect the canvas selection on bitmap layers when they were being used. We’ve changed it so filters are now masked to the selection.
When exporting as PSD images, Acorn doesn’t add any extra pixels to bitmap layers when it’s not necessary now (ie - it keeps the existing pixel bounds instead of matching that of the canvas. This should make file sizes smaller).
Updated the x/y labels in the Crop, Scale Layer, Perspective Transform, and Smart Layer Export palettes so they are consistent with the rest of Acorn.
When loading a new brush preset, Acorn will check and see if the velocity settings have been saved previously (either on or off). If it has not then the new brush preset will inherit the current brush’s velocity changes. This means if you turn on or off “velocity changes width” and switch to an older preset, it will respect the current option.

# Fixes

Bug fixes for Acorn’s MCP server.
Fixed a little problem where using File ▸ New from Clipboard with a URL would throw up a SVG error (but eventually download the image at the end of the URL!)
Fixed a problem where the clone tool would draw little artifacts when the blending opacity was less than 100%
Fixed a problem where using the Export With Preset menu item would not remember to use the resize options saved in the preset.
Fixed a problem where the mouse location in the vertical ruler wouldn’t update in the correct location.
Fixed a problem where smudge might not be working correctly for folks on a future version of MacOS.

Acorn 8.6.1

July 3rd, 2026.

# Fixes

Fixed a problem where the new brush engine was not working correctly with canvas selections.
Fixed a problem where the new brush engine was not working correctly with some older Intel GPUs.
Fixed a problem where the new brush engine might not work for people who had the old “Backing:” preference set to “CPU Memory”.
Fixed an issue where images that used a PQ based color profile would open up blindingly bright on the new Studio Display XDR (these images are now converted to Display P3).

# Other

Removed the Renderer: and Backing: options from the Fussy Stuff Settings tab, since they are not really needed these days. If you really want them back, you can use defaults write com.flyingmeat.Acorn8 showRenderPrefOptions 1. However, the new brushing engine will not work if you set the Backing: option to CPU Memory.

Acorn 8.6

June 24, 2026.

# New Things

The Crop palette has a new “Keep aspect ratio” option that does what it says and kicks in when you’re resizing the bounds of a crop. Honestly, I’m not sure why we haven’t had this option visible before, but I’m glad to have it for you now. Cheers!
Pressing ⌥↩ (Option-Enter) will move keyboard focus to the layers list to begin renaming the current layer. Cool. Other things you might not know:
- Pressing Enter on a selected text box will begin editing it.
- Pressing Enter on a shape layer will bring up the Quick Process window.

# New Brush Things

The brushing engine has been completely rewritten, and uses Metal shaders to do its drawing. It’s crazy fast. I ❤️ Metal.
Smudge, clone, burn, and dodge also use the new engine. Smudging is so much faster than it was before, it feels so good.
Other things that we you get with the new engine:
- A new setting for “Velocity thinning”, where the faster you draw your brush strokes, the thinner the lines.
- Brush blending/compositing is done with linear interpolation, making a more painterly blending between colors.
The Brush Designer will now keep previous test strokes, so it’s just like drawing on a regular layer. However, we’ve kept the ability to dynamically change your last brush stroke in realtime by adjusting the brush properties. And of course, redrawing is much faster.

# New Automation and JavaScript Things

Lots of interesting JavaScript things this time around.

The AppleScript do JavaScript command will now return a value. So something as simple as:

tell application "Acorn"
    do JavaScript "20+54"
end tell

Will return 74. But using Acorn for math is boring. And AppleScript is kind of boring. The Terminal is where it’s all at these days, so created a new shell tool for Acorn named acorncli (which replaces Acorn's old shell arguments if you remember that) and includes a MCP server. The acorncli also has a new -jsio argument, and you can pipe JavaScript from the clipboard and it will run it for you. (You might think this is dumb - but keep reading).

pbpaste | /Applications/Acorn.app/Contents/MacOS/acorncli -jsio

So you can now do something fancy like resizing all open images:

acorn.allDocuments().forEach((doc, index) => {
    doc.setCanvasSize_usingAnchor(NSMakeSize(1000, 1000), "top left");
});

In addition, when you use Acorn from the shell, it’ll send STDOUT back to the shell. So if you wanted to list all open images and return it as a JSON object, you would do the following:

var documentPaths = []
acorn.allDocuments().forEach((doc, index) => {
    // fileURL will be null if the file is not saved yet.
    if (doc.fileURL() != null) {
        documentPaths.push(doc.fileURL().path())
    }
});
print(JSON.stringify(documentPaths, null, 2));

This opens up a whole layer of possibilities for automation. You can query Acorn for open images, layers, etc., make some logic decisions, and then act on them.

We’ve also added a new option to disable JavaScript automation under Acorn’s Settings ▸ Advanced tab. So if you want to opt out of it, you can.

And if you want to drive Acorn using a LLM such as Claude, you can now point it to /Applications/Acorn.app/Contents/Resources/skills/acorn-javascript-api/ and it’ll figure out the rest. For instance, you could ask:

“Ask Acorn to take a layered screenshot, and hide any layers that aren’t from Safari. Then export each visible layer to /tmp/ as a PNG.”

And if Claude is having a good day, it’ll figure out how to do what you’ve asked.

Acorn also has a new JavaScript API Reference page, which lists out all the supported APIs you can use to automate Acorn.

# Changes

The ML models used for Super Resolution, Remove Background / Mask Subject / etc… are no longer included by default. Instead, Acorn will download them the first time you try and use one of those operations. By making it an optional download, we’ve trimmed up the size of Acorn’s application size quite a bit, and if you never use these features, why take up the disk space?

It will also make updating Acorn’s app quicker since it’s no longer included.

We’ve also heard from a number of you that you don’t want to use apps that include a whiff of AI, so this is a little nod to you as well.
SVG import improvements. Always making it better.
When searching the filters via the filters panel, Acorn does a much better at fuzzy matching now.
Got rid of the sliding animations in the layers list when you add or remove a row. Acorn feels faster without them.
Updated Russian localization.

# Other

Removed the option in the pixel tool to use stylus pressure.

# Fixes

General stability improvements.
Fixed a bug where you couldn’t drag filters from one window to another from the filters list.

Acorn 8.5

April 22nd, 2026.

# New Shape Things

Arrows have a new style: Bendable. With this option selected in the new Arrow shape palette, you can make your arrows curve across the canvas. We’ve also added the option to have an arrow head at either end of your line (and much rejoicing was had).
There is a new Shape Processor named Random Location from Circle which will either randomly move all shapes inside, outside, or along the edge of the adjustable circle. This is handy if you are making abstract art or custom wallpapers for your phone or desktop.

# New SVG Things

The SVG parser for Acorn has been updated to support more element types, styles, and other SVG goodies.

Text on a path is now supported.

Embedded images are now supported.

Poly lines and referenced elements are now supported.

Improvements to the path importer, now supporting rarely used path instructions.

Drop shadows on elements are now supported.

Element transforms have been greatly improved.

Opening a SVG as a single layer bitmap: Holding down the option key when opening a SVG will render your image as a bitmap. This uses the WebKit (aka, Safari) framework to rasterize the SVG, and it should look just like it does on the web.

Lots of other little things. Acorn’s importer is much improved, but if you come across a SVG that it can’t import and you think it should, make sure to send it to us: support@flyingmeat.com

# New Other Things

The Linear Multi-Stop Gradient and Radial Multi-Stop Gradient filters now support a couple of different color interpolations: Document, sRGB, Perceptual (Oklab), and Linear. Oklab is a great choice, and it’s now the default when creating a new filter.
When exporting an image as TGA you can now set the compression options.
You can now toggle the window UI by pressing the keys Option-Tab. Pro tip: Did you know pressing the Tab key will toggle all the palettes?
The RAW Import and New View windows now have overscroll and better zooming capabilities.
Drop shadows from layer effects are now imported from PSD files, and exported to layered PSD if you have a drop shadow layer style in an Acorn image.
New “Clear All Measurement Rulers” Action Bar item that will remove all the on canvas measurement rulers.
Clicking down on your scroll wheel mouse button (if you have one) will now let you pan your image around.

# Other

Renamed the Shape ▸ Align ▸ “Vertical / Horizontal Distribute Center” menu items to “Vertical / Horizontal Distribute Bounds”, which more accurately reflects what it does.
New Command Bar actions: Horizontal Distribute Left Edges, Horizontal Distribute Right Edges, Vertical Distribute Top Edges, Vertical Distribute Bottom Edges.
You can now drag and drop an image’s proxy icon onto its own canvas or layers list to duplicate all the layers in the image.
Undo now works when using the Free Rotate tool.
The Zoom tool now defaults to having the pref “Scrub zoom” turned on. You can change this back to the previous default in the Zoom palette.
UI refinements.
Bézier path editing refinements.
Holding down the Option key while clicking the Dock icon in the Settings… ▸ Mueller tab will reset it to the default on whatever system you are on is. So if you’re using tinted icons and don’t want either selection, this will come in handy.
Tweaked how images are opened a bit, so they open centered if multiple tabs are already visible.
Updated German, French, and Spanish localizations.

# Changes

General performance improvements with Bézier paths and arrows. And they use less memory now as well (which is awesome because we’re in the middle of a global memory shortage and we need to save all the bits we can).
There’s a new little heuristic for enabling the fill or stroke when changing the color for selected graphics. Acorn will now turn on fill or stroke when you change the fill/stroke color if a single shape is selected; but if there are multiple shapes selected with multiple enabled states for fill or stroke, then Acorn will not enable the property when a color change occurs.

# Fixes

The option for the number of Hysteresis Passes in the Canny Edge Detector filter is now visible.
Fixed a problem where you couldn’t edit existing text by clicking on it with the text tool when it was selected, and you had the Fussy Stuff setting “Always make new layers for text boxes” enabled.
Fixed a little bug where Instant Alpha wouldn’t work on selections after they were moved with the mouse.
Histograms are now a little bit smarter at drawing.
Tweaks to how the clone tool works across images.
Fixed an issue where you could’t move selected anchors in a Bézier path with the arrow keys.
Fixed a problem where the multi-stop linear gradient filter wasn’t working so well on smaller dimensioned images (less than 512px in size).
Fixed a problem where the Generate Shapes processor would hide all shapes when using the Shape: pulldown and you moved the cursor outside the menu.
Fixed an issue where the tab bar was getting in the way when canvases were in edge-to-edge mode.

Acorn 8.4.1

Jan 24th, 2026.

# Changes

Tweaks to how Animated GIF, Animated PNG, and SVG previews are rendered on export, so scaling, panning, comparing to the original, and other such things work exactly like they do for other formats (excluding PDFs). You can even split view compare animated images now, which is fun.

# Fixes

Fixed an issue where sometimes an image would initially open with blank white canvas for a small number of folks.
Fixed an issue where the custom color well in the Canvas Resize wasn’t quite working as well as it could have when you selected options from the pulldown.
Fixed an issue where using a custom avif encoder could crash Acorn.
Fixed an issue when using a custom avif encoder, the color profile would not be embedded.

# Other

Updated French and German localizations.
Data Merge will now treat the sequence `\n` as a newline in CSV files.

Acorn 8.4

Jan 16th, 2026.

# New

You can now set or change the GPS metadata for your image in the File ▸ File Info… menu item.
New File ▸ Export ▸ Export With Preset menu item, where you can find all your carefully crafted export presets available. With this new menu item, you can skip the preview window with all the great settings, and just save your image exactly how you want it.
New Command Bar Action: “Fill Selection With Average Corner Color”. Looks at the top left, bottom left, top right, and bottom right pixels on the edge of the selection, and fills with the average color of those pixels. Works best for rectangular selections, great for erasing elements of a screenshot. There’s also a new “Fill Selection With Average Selected Color”, which is similar to the previous command, but looks at all the selected pixels (and works best with non-transparent rectangular selections).
You can now export images in the AVIF format, via the File ▸ Export ▸ Export (Web & Other) menu. In general, this only available for macOS 26 or later. However if you have the avifenc tool installed, Acorn will detect this and use it for encoding of AVIF files . It currently looks in both /opt/homebrew/bin/ and /usr/local/bin/. Alternatively you can also set the avifencPath default with a full path to the encoder you’d like to use. Note: using an alternate version of avifenc is only available for the non-App Store version of Acorn.
Two new filters for masking content - Circle Mask and Rectangle Mask (under the Generator category). They have options for size / radius, masking inside or outside the shape, a blend mode, and color of course. You can use this to darken areas of your layer, or even use it to cut out areas of your image using the Destination Out blend mode.

# User Interface Things

New “Hide menu item icons” option under the Mueller preferences tab.
The Appearance Setting “Change canvas background while in full screen” defaults to off now.

# Changes

The default font size for images is now based on how big an image is (instead of always defaulting to 12px).

# Fixes

Various stability and performance improvements (specifically for Apple Silicon Macs).
The Trim out Selection command now behaves a little nicer with shape layers.
Fixed a problem where the Offset and Wrap Layer palette might throw a warning up on empty values for the x/y fields.
Fixed a problem where the zoom palette mini-canvas would sometimes flicker when panning around the canvas.
Fixed an issue where converting a bézier shape to outlines would not render rounded end caps correctly when doing so.

Acorn 8.3.3

December 8th, 2025.

# Changes

The measurement unit you choose for rulers and fields is now a global setting, no longer saved per-image in .acorn files. The per-image setting caused confusion, and having a single global preference is simpler and more predictable.
The Export window now defaults to the last used color profile (likely sRGB for most users). Previously it defaulted to the document profile. If you prefer the original image profile, choose it from the top of the Color Profile pop-up or use ⌘⇧K.
The Flood Fill tool (“Paint Bucket”) now includes a blend mode option.
App Store receipt verification has been updated.

# Other

Using Select All or Clear Selection on Shape Layers with more than 10,000 shapes got a lot faster.
The Redraw Layer filter now has a blending option.
Tweaks to the RAW Import UI.
Added a new Spanish localization (send feedback if you have any!).
Updated German and French localizations.

# Fixes

Fixed an issue where the zoom palette wouldn’t update correctly when you had the Setting for floating palettes enabled.
Fixed a problem where viewing the layer filters when the window was set to full screen would truncate some buttons at the top of the list.
Fixed a problem where the selection resize handles were drawing when you were using the polygonal select tool.
Fixed a problem where using the Stroke Selection command would sometimes draw the stroke in the wrong location.
Various UI refinements that were driving Gus a little crazy.
Fixed a problem where the controls below the layers list would not appear when the “Edge to edge images” setting was enabled.
Fixed a problem where the widget to swap colors wasn’t working correctly.
Fixed an issue where you could perform various selection operations when you weren’t supposed to (like when transforming a selection).

Acorn 8.3.2

November 6th, 2025.

# Changes

Change in how the Horizontal & Vertical Align Center commands use for multiple selected layers. Previously they would center themselves in the canvas (either splitting the width or height as it’s center point). Now it’ll use the optical bounds of the selected layers. This results in the layers moving less, and maybe a bit more predictably if you’re used to how other image editors might behave.
Slight behavior change when transforming selections. It used to be that when you had selection on canvas, you would use the Move tool (v) to begin transforming the selection (without changing the layer). Now you need to have one of the selection tools (rect, oval, magic wand, etc) selected to start modifying the selection bounds / resize it. If you have the Move tool selected and you begin resizing a selection, Acorn will begin modifying the selected pixels and not just the selection. It’s a more natural and expected way to work with selections.

# Fixes

Fixed some layout glitches in the tool inspector and Settings window.
Fixed a problem where new layers weren’t always showing up in the layers list when Acorn was set to have floating palettes.
Localization updates and fixes.
Other bug fixes and improvements.

Acorn 8.3.1

October 20th, 2025.

# Fixes

Fixed a problem for folks with the Setting “Float inspector palettes in windows” set to true, where you’d get double tool palettes.
Fixed a problem where the shortcut for deleting a bézier path anchor (clicking it with Command-Option down) wasn’t working.
Localization updates and fixes.
Other bug fixes and improvements.

Acorn 8.3

October 14, 2025.

The Liquid Glass Release.

# New

Liquid Glass support! If you’ve updated your Mac to macOS 26 Tahoe, you are now presented with an option for using Apple’s new Liquid Glass transparent UI, or you can opt to keep the classic look of Acorn.
Why the options? For pro users, we know you’re going to want to keep distractions out and clarity in the UI paramount, so you’re probably going to keep the glasstastic options off. But for the more casual users who love the new refractions and interface, you’re going to love seeing the your canvas reflected back in the palettes.
But what if you change your mind? Acorn has a new Appearance Settings tab, where you can turn on and off the Liquid Glass palettes. You even have the option to have your canvas display edge to edge, without the Liquid Glass palettes.
New macOS 26 Tahoe friendly squircle icon.

# Other

The shortcut for swapping the width and height of a crop preset has changed from holding down the option key to the shift key. This was done because holding down the option key is also used for deleting custom presets, so you couldn’t use the same modifier for both.
When using the Clone Tool, the on canvas brush preview is now drawn with a bit of transparency. We hope this helps with more accurate brushing.
Acorn got a bit smarter about opening images without a file extension, by peeking into the file and making a more informed decision about what kind of image it is (I’m looking directly at you, DICOM X-ray images).

# Fixes

Fixed an issue where Acorn could get stuck at a specific zoom level when using the Command+ or Command- shortcuts.
Fixed an issue where using the clone tool when zoomed way in could make your cloned areas a little blurry.
Fixed a problem where the eraser tool would use the alpha value of the current fill color, instead of only relying on the the Flow setting to control how much is erased.
Cleaned up button spacing in the Settings window.
Cleaned up some localizations.
Other minor bug fixes.

Acorn 8.2.2

September 17th, 2025.

# Fixes

Fixed an issue where you’d get a warning if you were running on macOS Tahoe (sorry about that!)
Fixed an issue where the correct Acorn icon wasn’t showing up in the Dock.

Acorn 8.2.1

September 8th, 2025.

# Fixes

Fixed an issue where resizing the width of a selection using the selection transform palette would cause the origin (x coordinate) of the selection to change as well.
Fixed a problem where you could perform “Trim to Edges” when you were in the middle of a resize layer transform.
Fixed a problem where the main window would show attached palettes when you had the preference for floating palettes set (this was a little hangover from getting stuff ready for Liquid Glass).

Acorn 8.2

September 4th, 2025.

We’ve got a handful of big things and a ton of little things for you in this update.

# Export (Web & Other…) Improvements

You can now view differences and split screen between images with the new View popup in the export window. Switch between the various views with the 'a' (view exported image), 'b' (view original image), 'd' (view difference), 's' (split view), and 'g' (view out of gamut highlights when the original image has a wide gamut profile) keyboard shortcuts.
You can now set the bits per component of an image on export to 8, 16, or 32 (hurray for deep color!)
Related to the previous item - the Export canvas will now render your images with deep colors if the depth is greater than 8.
We’ve made tweaks to the layout and locations of buttons in the Export window, to get ready for future OS updates.
Improved scrolling, scaling, zooming in the preview canvas; and now overscroll has been brought to the export preview canvas as well.

# Other New Stuff

New Linear & Radial Multi-Stop Gradient filters, which work like the normal non-destructive Linear Gradient / Radial Gradient filters, but now with more colors. You can find these wonderful new filters in the Filter ▸ Gradient menu.
The new image diff stuff in the Export window is pretty cool, so we’ve also put it in a new Command Bar action named “Compare Two Front Windows”.
Zoom modifiers when using the panning tool via the space bar. As you know (or if not, now you do!) you can temporarily switch to the panning tool by holding down the space bar. Now if you hold down the space bar, and then press the Command key, Acorn will temporarily switch to the scrub zoom tool. So you can quickly zoom in and out without switching tools. (This is standard image editing behavior, which we’re happy to bring to Acorn).

# Smaller New Things and Changes

The blend mode popup now shows a little icon next to each item with a little representation of what each blend mode does.
The amount of feathering you apply to a selection is now saved to .acorn files (along with the current selection). The feathering stepper has a new button next to it which bakes in the feather, so you can add new selections that you might not want feathered.
Smart Layer Export now has an option for shared backgrounds between exported layers. Visit the documentation on Smart Layer Export for more information.
Localizations: Acorn now has an Italian localization, and also fills in missing German localizations.
Command-Option-J is a new shortcut for duplicating the currently selected shape(s).
There’s a new shortcut to temporarily toggle snapping: Command-Shift-Option-;
Speaking of snapping, there’s now a snap setting (and pref) for snapping to canvas measurement rulers.
Updated zoom and resize cursors for macOS 15 or later.
There’s a new Fussy preference titled “Convert flat images to .acorn when layers are added”, which will upgrade your .png/.jpeg/.tiff files to Acorn’s native file format when a layer is added. Images are then autosaved (by default) and when you next save, you will be asked to name the file and where to save it. Acorn will use the original image’s name and location by default.
The resize selection handles now only show up when you have the move tool selected.
Tweaked the Registration Certificate window a little bit. (This is for non-App Store folks only.)

# Creator Preferences

There’s a new Settings tab titled “Mueller”. This is a slightly opinionated preferences tab that most folks might not need.
It includes a new preference titled “Hide Arial in Acorn’s font chooser”, which does what it says.
It also includes a preference to change Acorn’s icon in the Dock to be locked in a squircle, or free like it was meant to be. Squircle lovers, rejoice. Squircle haters, rejoice.

# Super Technical New Thing

There’s now an option to save a flattened composite of each layer in .acorn files. This is a per image setting, and you can find it in the File ▸ File Info… window under “General”. When enabled Acorn will write a composite of your layer data into the saved .acorn file exactly as it’s rendered on canvas. This includes layer filters, masks, rasterized vectors, etc. This is super useful if you’d like to pull out full fidelity representations of your layer data, which is super easy to do using SQLite:
select writefile('/tmp/' || layers.name || '-' || layers.uti || '.png', value) from layers, layer_attributes where layers.id = layer_attributes.id and layer_attributes.name = 'composite';

This is not currently a global setting, but using the following defaults command will turn it on by default:
defaults write com.flyingmeat.Acorn8 alwaysSaveLayerComposites 1

Acorn’s file format is easy to grok and documented here: https://flyingmeat.com/acorn/docs/technotes/ACTN002.html.

# Fixes & Misc.

Tweaks were made to the “Darker Color” blend mode so it’s a bit more accurate.
Acorn will update its selection mode icons when you’ve pressed one of the modifier keys for adding, subtracting, or intersecting the selection (shift, option, shift+option).
Tweaked the horizontal and vertical distribute functions so they are even more pixel perfect.
Misc: Acorn now uses the Pasteboard (Clipboard) access APIs to see if it’s OK to read the clipboard. This is done to enable the File ▸ New from Clipboard menu item, or updating the default image width & height fields in the New Image panel.
Fixed an issue where rotating the canvas when a selection was present would sometimes give unexpected results.
Fixed a problem where exporting text with strokes as SVG would draw the stroke and fill in the wrong order.
Fixed a problem where Path Text’s highlight frame was a bit off (it was only accounting for the path, and not the text as well).
Fixed a problem where the offset handle for Path Text wouldn’t draw in the right place as you moved anchor points around.
Fixed a problem with the Image Resize sheet setting the wrong width when you had your measurement tag set to cm and you unchecked the Resample Image checkbox.
Fixed an instance where adding an anchor to a bézier path might show up on the wrong segment. Also made things a bit more precise when you are zoomed in.
Fixed an issue where the Overlay shortcut wouldn’t let you set x and y coordinates when you used the “Custom” position option.
Various SVG export improvements (text on a path and text in a circle now render correctly).
Fixed a problem where the Crop palette might not update its values when you move the crop on the canvas around with the keyboard arrow keys.
Fixed a problem where Data Merge wasn’t always working for the App Store version of Acorn.
Fixed a problem where the Web Export window could decrease the bits per component of an image when enabling a background color.
Fixed a problem where Acorn could hang when dragging and dropping in a RAW file to Acorn’s canvas.
Fixed a problem where selection handles were too grabby when you were zoomed way in on an image.
Fixed a compatibility issue with text strokes when opening up .acorn images created Acorn v5.x.
Fixed a problem where the web export would sometimes scale down images unnecessarily, causing text to appear blurry.
A little bit more accurate with hex values in the color picker.
Fixed a problem where Acorn could crash when pasting certain types of data.

Acorn 8.1.1

April 25th, 2025.

# Fixes

Fixed minor drawing issues when using the pixel tool with the “Copy” blend mode and opacity set less than 100%
Fixed a drawing issue when using the Perspective Transform tool.
Fixed a possible crasher when using the color loupe tool.
Worked around an issue where Photos wouldn’t import changes to edited 16bpc images when transparency was involved.
Fixed a problem where a layer’s opacity could accidentally be set to 1% under various conditions when switching tools.
Various little fixes for working with 64bit images.
Various little tweaks for showing and hiding the system color palette.

Acorn 8.1

March 6th, 2025.

# New Features

You can now resize selections with on canvas handles. Once you start resizing a selection, a palette appears and you are able to set the width, height, angle, and more. Press enter to finish up.
New “Crop to Original Bounds” filter, which will will cut out all the pixels outside the original image. This is useful if your image goes through a series of filters that distort it in such a way that the image dimensions grow in size (such as blur filters, distortions, etc). Using this filter will crop it back to the original dimensions.
The RAW Import window got a big upgrade with more options for making your RAW images come out exactly as you’d like. Updated documentation is available: RAW Image Support.
New “Scrub zoom” preference in the Zoom palette. When turned on, you can zoom in and out smoothly by clicking and dragging left or right on the canvas when the Zoom tool is active.

Related bonus features:

You can toggle the “Scrub zoom” preference off and on by quickly pressing the z key.
You can now zoom in to 25600% (up from 6400%).
Tip: You can double click on the zoom slider handle to zoom to 100%.

The Grayscale Filter has expanded the range for RGB sliders from 0-100% to -200-200%. Additionally, it now includes an Intensity slider that controls the blending of the grayscale filter. This enhancement allows for more creative channel mixing when creating monochromatic images.
When using the Crop tool, holding down both Option and Shift keys while confirming/committing the crop will add a selection instead of cropping the image. Tip: Holding just the Option key crops the current layer rather than the entire image.
A new File ▸ Actions menu allows you to place shortcuts, droplets, scripts, and more. This replaces the legacy “File Actions” menu item. You can read more (and learn how to revert to the previous File Actions menu) in the Actions documentation.
Added a new Make New Layer from Subject menu item, which appears instead of Make Selection from Layer when holding the Option key under the Select menu.
Introduced two new blend modes: Linear Light and Vivid Light.

# Autosaving Changes

There is a new preference in the Settings window for autosave with three options:

Off: This will disable all autosaving of images.
Native Acorn Images: This will enable autosaving and versions support for native Acorn files only (.acorn).
All Images: This will autosave all file types, including lossy encoded images such as JPEG or HEIC.

The default is set to Native Acorn Images.

In Acorn 8.0, when autosave was enabled, non-native files would open without a reference to the original file on disk. This is no longer the case in Acorn 8.1, where non-native files open with a reference to the original file, and pressing ⌘S will save back to the original, regardless of the autosave setting.

# Other Improvements

The Smart Layer Export palette now has options to save as WebP and JPEG-XL.
When exporting images, Acorn does a better job now at stripping out the alpha channel when it’s not needed.
PSD files now correctly import masks for group layers. If you’re using Etsy frame mockups, this one is for you.
The RGBA Multiplier filter will now allow you to enter values up to 25500% for the multiplier (up from 1000%).
If you have multiple shape layers selected in the layers list and use the Edit ▸ Copy menu item, and then use the File ▸ New from Clipboard menu item, the original shape layers will be copied over instead of a bitmap of the layers. SVG data for the selected layers will also be written to the clipboard.
Acorn now does a better job at auto-scrolling the canvas when working with various tools, and it’s slowed down the rate of auto-scrolling a bit as well.
Data Merge import will now allow the prefix '@ (single-quote + @ symbol) to denote an image path, in addition to a single @ symbol. This is for Microsoft Excel compatibility, which reserves the @ symbol for functions.
Slight change to the do JavaScript AppleScript interface, which used to say it returned a value, it no longer does (and never really did anyway).
The pixel grid is now turned on by default when you are zoomed in at or above 1000%. (Also, that value used to be 500%).
The brush preview in the inspector palette(s) now clamps to a maximum size of 50 for brush strokes. Previously, large brush sizes made the preview ineffective.
Minor improvements have been made to SVG export functionality.
Acorn will display a confirmation prompt in the PDF Import window when attempting to create an image over 50MP, similar to the warning for creating a new image. Additionally, caution is encouraged when trying to create images over 525MP.

# Bug Fixes

Fixed a bug with the Levels filter where it could impact other layers.
Slight tweak to the Fuzz Stroke filter to fix artifacts when the stroke was set to certain sizes.
Not so much a bug fix, but some slight tweaks to the shape angle widget in the shape palette to get nicer values. Pro Tip: Did you know you can hold down the option key when using this widget to get fractional values?
Fixed a problem where the canvas preview in the zoom palette might show your image with the wrong color profile.
Tweaks to how WebP is detected when running Acorn on macOS 14.
Resolved an issue where moving selections at high zoom levels caused unexpected snapping behavior.
Fixed a problem with boolean shape operations on shapes with corner radii, which previously resulted in undesired Bézier paths.
Solved an issue where the minimum size for pencil/pixel tool brushes could be less than 1.
Addressed an issue preventing text boxes from being moved after using the Data Merge inspector.

Acorn 8.0.1

January 6th, 2025.

# Bug Fixes.

Fixed a problem where canceling a Data Merge export wouldn't reliably stop the export. Also fixed a problem where Data Merge was consuming gobs of memory.
Fixed a problem where the RAW Import window would preview images with the wrong color profile, making images appear overexposed.
Fixed a problem where sometimes the Data Merge palette wouldn't appear when asked for.
Fixed a problem where you couldn't drag an image from the Finder into Acorn's layers list.
Workaround for a macOS 15 Sequoia Photos bug where using the Image ▸ Edit With ▸ Acorn menu item would send a 16bpc wide gamut TIFF to Acorn, and then when Photos reads it back in, not notice the color profile has been updated and render it darker. Acorn no longer upgrades the color profile in this case, and keeps it exactly what it is given (Apple Wide Color Sharing Profile). (The image will still render in Photos _slightly_ darker, but the same is true if you edit the photo with Preview or any other app. But it's much better than before, and really only with wide gamut images).
Fixed a problem where Acorn sometimes crashed when exporting as an SVG.
Fixed a problem where you couldn't move the anchor points of a Bézier path with text.
Fixed a problem where the checkerboard background for the canvas would sometimes get lighter colors when Dark Aqua was the current UI.

# Other.

Minor performance improvements for the RAW Import window.

Acorn 8

December 16th, 2024.

Acorn 8 requires MacOS 14 or later.

# Big New Things in Acorn 8

New Select ▸ "Select Subject" and "Mask Subject" menu commands. This uses Machine Learning to find the main subject in your image and either selecting it automatically or masking it out.
New Layer ▸ Remove Background menu command which works just like the Mask Subject, but does it without adding a layer mask.
New "New Live Text" tool. When used, Acorn will highlight the text on your canvas and you can click it to copy to the clipboard, or drag out a selection and copy multiple pieces of text to the clipboard at once. In addition a New "Copy Bitmap Text to Clipboard" Command Bar action which will copy all found text for the current bitmap layer.
New "Quick Processor". It's a quick version of the Shape Processor, where you can duplicate shapes, rotate, transform, and apply other operations to them. You can even use snippets of JavaScript to perform your own magic to shapes, including modifying anchors in bezier shapes.
You can now set your measurement units to in inches, centimeter, or pixels. Various palettes have been updated to use and take measurements in inches or centimeters (or pixels) for input. Crop, selections, shape sizes - you can now view them in your favorite measurement type. The setting you've chosen is now not just a global preference, but is saved in .acorn files as well. So you can have one window using Inches and another using Centimeters. (This feature has been one of our top requests for years, so we're happy to finally deliver it to you).
Data Driven Graphics via Image ▸ Data Merge menu item, where you can point Acorn to a CSV file and it'll dynamically swap in the row values and replace text or bitmap graphics depending on what's in the data file. Do you need to make a bunch of employee badges, invitations, or even supermarket labels? Data Merge is pretty neat and you should check out the documentation for how to use it effectively.
A new canvas ruler tool! You can use it measure out lengths and angles, and even use it to help straighten your image. It shows either inches, cm, or px — depending on what your preferred measurement unit is. You can even set the DPI of an image based on a ruler's length. Click on the "Assign Drawing Scale (DPI)" button in the Ruler info view (or use the contextual menu or a ruler), and you get a dialog asking you what length exactly should this ruler be. If you're measuring something out in real life, that's say 15 inches, you enter 15 and press enter. Now the DPI is set up exactly as you'd expect it to be in real life.
Bonus tip: when modifying a ruler's angle and length on the canvas, holding down the shift key will snap it to 45° increments.
Look up Table (LUT) support. This is pretty huge for making your phone pictures look a bit more unique. You can download and install new LUTs from various places across the internet, which you can add and use along existing filters in Acorn.

To install a LUT you only need to put it into Acorn's LUTs folder. You can find it by choosing the Help ▸ Open Acorn's App Support folder menu item.

Acorn will accept 3D LUT files in .png or .cube format.

And speaking of making LUT files, if you have a series of filters that you'd like to turn into a LUT you can place those in a HALD image and then export that as a LUT file. Use the Command Bar command "HALD 16 | 25 | 64 | 144 LUT" to make new 3D LUT files, and the Command Bar "Export LUT…" command to export.
New Shortcuts action to call any Command Bar actions. So you can script something to say "Insert Random Hexes" if you have that plugin installed, or maybe "Flip Canvas Vertical" which is a standard menu item. This could be pretty powerful and allows you to make Acorn do things we haven't even dreamed of yet.
Presets for (Web) Export. You can now save your meticulously crafted settings in the export window. Do you have favorite settings for exporting to the web? And then a different setting for making PDF? This feature is for you.
A new Polygon Shape tool! This great new tool lets you create multisided shapes to your heart's content. It also comes with on canvas controls to change the radius, side count, and angle. Make hexagons, pentagons, and even heptacontatetragons.
Export as JPEG XL via the Export window. JPEG XL is the next generation JPEG format, with support for better compression, higher bit depth, support of transparency, and lossless encoding.
Export as an Animated PNG via the Export window. This joins the already popular Animated GIF option, but now with a full 24bit color and transparency support.
"Extract Each Selected Shape to a New Layer" Command Bar action. Make animated images by using the Shape Processor to take a single shape and have it copied across the canvas. Then use the extract command to place each copy on a new layer, use the File ▸ Export ▸ Export menu item and select Animated PNG or GIF.
New "Reverse Order of Shapes" Processor, which flips the z-order of shapes being processed.
New "Combine Shapes" Processor, which uses a union boolean operation against all the shapes (which should be overlapping each other).
New "Add Anchors" Processor, which will convert any shapes to Bézier paths if they aren't already, and then double the number of anchors on the shape by placing a new anchor between two existing anchors.
New Command Bar action named "Trim To Inner Opaque Edges". This is kind of like the "Trim to Edges" command, but instead of searching out the farthest edges of the image to trim to, it searches for the innermost edges to trim to. This is handy if you rotate an image and want to get rid of any transparent areas caused by the rotation of a rectangle.

# Minor New Things and Quality of Life Improvements

QOL: When using the View ▸ Zoom To ▸ Fit in Window menu item (⌘0), Acorn will always scale your image when you resize your window to keep it perfectly fitting the window size.
Autosave and Versions is now enabled by default (though you can change this in Acorn's preferences). This means that non-native images (of which .acorn files are currently the only kind) will open up in a window without reference to the original file. This is so lossy image formats (JPEG/HEIC/etc.) will not autosave back to the original file, and thus increasing compression artifacts.
We've updated our online documentation to be easier to search and navigate.
The color picker will now let you copy the color as a little snippet of code, in CSS, Swift, Objective-C, or Hexadecimal.
New preference to show grids by default.
New Fussy Pref to open images at 100% scale (aka, 'zoom').
The Linear and Radial color gradient filters now contain little color swap widgets, which can be super helpful when you accidentally started with your colors backwards.
QOL: Improved snapping heuristics, and we've also turned on snapping to shapes and layers by default now.
QOL: Animated PNGs and GIFs now animate in the export preview.
QOL: Snapping has been given a bit of an upgrade and should feel generally smoother now. In addition, Acorn now has snapping to layers and shapes turned on by default with version 8. And finally a tip: you can temporarily turn off snapping when moving objects by holding down the control key.
QOL: If you have a crop frame on the canvas, Edit ▸ Copy and Edit ▸ Copy Merged will only copy the pixels that are currently inside the crop. This is a handy way to make multiple copies of a fixed selection size in your canvas.
Bézier shapes have been reworked quite a bit internally, providing a more robust and sensible on-canvas interaction. If it's been a while since you've used them, it's worth your time to check them out again.
The Photos Editing extension has been retired (did you know it downgrades the quality of your image? Nonsense!). Instead, you should use the Image ▸ Edit With ▸ Acorn menu item in the Photos app. This sends a full quality image to Acorn which you can edit and then have saved back to Photos.

# Scripting and Plug-Ins

The Plug-In API now has access to the underlying structure for bezier paths. ACBezierPath, ACBezierAnchor are two new objects you can play with from ACBezierGraphic. Check out ACPlugin.h for the methods available.
Shortcuts have been completely rewritten to use the new Siri App Intents framework. This in theory will allow you to have Siri drive Acorn in a future version of macOS.

# Command Bar Additions

We've added various crop commands to the Command Bar — you can now add crops for 4x6, 2x3, square, etc just by typing a few keystrokes.
Pressing the key / will bring up the Command Bar.
You can find the full list of Command Bar commands in our online documentation.

# Miscellaneous

OpenGL has been selectively stripped from Acorn, in the hopes that every machine running Acorn 8 will execute Metal correctly. If you're on an Apple Silicon Mac, you don't need to worry about anything. If you're on an Intel Mac, let me know if things seem a little wonky with rendering and filters and such: support@flyingmeat.com.
Bitmap layers are now saved as PNG data in .acorn files (previously it was TIFF). Decoding of PNG files on MacOS is way faster than TIFF, so opening large .acorn images should be much faster than earlier versions once they have been re-saved. If your image is above 64BPP however, it will still be saved as a TIFF data since PNG will not encode at that rate.
Holding down the option key when opening Acorn will now make it forget any previously open documents.
Improvements when calling JavaScript from the command line. See the docs for more info.
The "Randomize Anchor Locations" processor, and "Random Bezier" option in the Generate Shapes processor were tweaked a little bit and might look a little different from previous versions of Acorn.
Various SVG import improvements.
Renamed the Shape ▸ Bézier Stuff ▸ Add Points menu item to Add Anchors.
The Document & Layer info view (brought up by pressing the 'v' button twice) now has a button to copy the contents to the clipboard.
The text tool is a bit nicer when creating a new text box with a single click on the canvas.
Setting the width/height on star shapes will now do the right thing (sets its diameter)
Rewrote the New Image from camera code to use Apple's latest APIs.
JSTalk support via Distributed Objects has been removed.

Acorn

Acorn update

# New

# Other

# Fixes

# New Stuff

# New Stuff

# Changes

# Fixes

# Fixes

# Other

# New Things

# New Brush Things

# New Automation and JavaScript Things

# Changes

# Other

# Fixes

# Changes

# Fixes

# New Shape Things

# New SVG Things

# New Other Things

# Other

# Changes

# Fixes

# Changes

# Fixes

# Other

# New

# User Interface Things

# Changes

# Fixes

# Changes

# Other

# Fixes

# Changes

# Fixes

# Fixes

The Liquid Glass Release.

# New

# Other

# Fixes

# Fixes

# Fixes

# Export (Web & Other…) Improvements

# Other New Stuff

# Smaller New Things and Changes

# Creator Preferences

# Super Technical New Thing

# Fixes & Misc.

# Fixes

# New Features

# Autosaving Changes

# Other Improvements

# Bug Fixes

# Bug Fixes.

# Other.

# Big New Things in Acorn 8

# Minor New Things and Quality of Life Improvements

# Scripting and Plug-Ins

# Command Bar Additions

# Miscellaneous