Suggestions appear as you type. Use the up and down arrows to choose one and Enter to open it.

This page's audience our own tag's counts — open to see them
–Visits
–Page views
–Clicks to vendors
–Time on page
–Reading now
Clicks to vendors, by tool
  • –
Top countries
  • –
Devices
  • –

– · visits, page views and clicks counted by our own tag, which counts more than our checked analytics; every figure rounded down · how we count

Dottie review

#25 of 70 in Pixel Art Software

A feature-rich Mac editor for pixel artists who want animation, tilesets, and scripting.

6.7/10Editor score
Visit Dottie
Dottie6.7 Visit Dottie

Reviewed by iTechGuides Editors · Editorial team · Updated Oct 2026

Dottie is a native macOS pixel art editor for creating game sprites, tilesets, icons, portraits, and animations. It is aimed at solo pixel artists and small game-development teams who prefer a dedicated desktop application. The tool combines pixel-focused drawing and selection tools with layers, custom palettes, vector layers, animation controls, and format support for common raster, animation, project, and vector workflows. It is distributed through the Mac App Store and requires macOS 12.4 or later.

Animation and tileset work are central strengths. Dottie provides a frame-based timeline with frame tags, playback, per-frame timing, onion skinning, and animation modes in its layer system. Its tileset editor supports grid-based sprite-sheet workflows and cross-tile strokes, while sprite-sheet, animated GIF, and animated APNG export support delivery to game and media pipelines. Custom palettes include built-in presets, Lospec import, gradients, and palette-file support. Vector layers add editable objects, groups, and SVG interoperability for workflows that mix pixel and vector elements.

The scripting options distinguish Dottie from a narrowly focused drawing tool. JavaScript plugins, AppleScript, and JXA scripting provide ways to extend or automate work, and export options include PNG, GIF, TIFF, BMP, ICO, PICO-8, XPM, APNG, and SVG. The trade-off is platform scope: Dottie is desktop software for macOS, with no current iPad support, and it does not offer a free plan. Choose it if you work on a Mac and value animation, tilesets, palette control, vector interoperability, or scripting. Choose another editor if you need Windows, Linux, iPad, or a free starting option.

Dottie pros and cons

  • Where it wins
    • Frame-based animation includes timelines, tags, playback, and per-frame timing.
    • Tileset tools support grid-based sprite sheets and cross-tile strokes.
    • JavaScript plugins, AppleScript, and JXA enable scripting and extensions.
  • Where it doesn't
    • Runs on macOS only and requires macOS 12.4 or later.
    • There is no free plan.
    • An iPad version is not currently supported.

Dottie fact sheet, pricing and score →

Advertiser disclosure: iTechGuides is reader-supported. Vendors can pay for top positions in our rankings and for a place on other products' pages, and we may earn a commission when you click some links. Bought places stand at the number bought; this page and our disclosure say so. Paying vendors may get a fuller, more detailed review from our editors, and that review can change their score. How we rank.

Last updated · How we research and update