I recently discovered Hexo while looking for a better way to manage color palettes across design projects. Like many people who work with color, I’d been juggling between online color pickers, browser tabs full of palette tools, and scattered hex codes in text files. The workflow was messy and I knew there had to be a better approach.
Hexo lives in your menu bar and provides quick access to a screen color picker with a simple left-click. The app goes beyond basic color picking by offering palette extraction from images using three different algorithms: K-means clustering, histogram analysis, and median cut. You can drag an image onto the window and instantly generate a color palette, which is particularly useful when working with brand assets or inspiration photos.
The organizational features are what sold me on the app. You can create hierarchical folder structures for different projects or clients, and the smart folder system automatically groups favorites, recent picks, and all palettes in one place. There’s also duplicate detection that warns you before editing or deleting palettes with similar colors. In my usage over several weeks, I found the folder system more intuitive than tag-based organization that other color tools use.
For designers working on accessible web interfaces, Hexo includes WCAG compliance checking for color contrast. The app verifies AA and AAA standards and includes a colorblind simulation mode, which saves trips to separate accessibility testing tools. There’s also a CMYK preview toggle in settings if you need to consider print output.
The export functionality is comprehensive, supporting JSON, Adobe ASE and ACO formats, GIMP GPL, CSS, SCSS, and several other formats. This makes it straightforward to move palettes between design applications or share with team members who use different tools. One-click hex code copying supports RGB, Hex, HSL, and CMYK formats, which streamlines repetitive color tasks.
Hexo offers three theme choices (Light, Dark, and Hexo Mode) and includes mini palettes that follow you across multiple desktops, which is useful if you run a multi-monitor setup. The app has customizable keyboard shortcuts for global access, though I can’t figure out how to set different shortcuts for different palette actions - the customization applies to the main color picker only.
The app requires macOS 14.6 or newer and runs at roughly 100MB of memory in my testing. Hexo is available on the Mac App Store with a 7-day free trial, after which it requires a one-time purchase. The developer doesn’t collect any user data, and all palettes are stored locally on your Mac.
For UI/UX designers, brand designers, or anyone frequently working with color who needs better organization than browser bookmarks or screenshots, Hexo provides a solid menu bar solution. The blend mode controls and harmony visualization are features I didn’t know I needed until I started using them regularly.
