App guide

Using Colour Within

Last updated: 15 October 2026

Colour Within is adult paint by numbers for iPad: structured enough to begin, quiet enough to stay with, and open enough for the result to feel like yours.

What Colour Within is

Each artwork is prepared as a set of paintable areas with a palette chosen to work beautifully together. You pick a colour, find the matching areas, and fill the page at your own pace.

It is not a freeform drawing app, a game, or a streak to maintain. There are no scores, timers, leaderboards, or penalties for leaving a page unfinished.

What you need

• An iPad that can run the current version of Colour Within.
• Apple Pencil if you have one, or your finger if you prefer.
• An internet connection the first time you open the app, so it can download a starter set of pages. After that, you need a connection to download new artworks, but pages you have already downloaded open offline.

Finding an artwork

The Library is where you browse available artworks. Tap a category along the top to see only that kind of page, and pull down to check for new pages. New artwork also downloads in the background, so it is usually ready when you open the app.

Daily shows today's featured page, which changes over at midnight, even if Colour Within is already open. If today's page has not arrived yet, tap Refresh. The pages from the past week are there too, and older Daily pages stay in the Library.

My Work keeps the pages you have already started, so you can return to them without beginning again.

Colouring a page

1. Open an artwork from Daily, Library, or My Work.
2. Pick a colour from the palette.
3. Use the Paintbrush, Pencil, or Bucket Fill to colour the matching areas. Paintbrush is selected for you when you start.
4. Change colours whenever you want to continue through the page.

The structure is there to reduce the blank-page problem. You are still choosing the pace, the order, and how long you want to stay.

Tools

Apple Pencil is recommended for precision, but every tool also works with touch.

• Paintbrush draws dense, nearly opaque strokes in the selected colour. With Apple Pencil it responds to pressure and tilt.
• Pencil works like the Paintbrush, but its strokes are lighter and much more translucent.
• Bucket Fill fills the area you tap with the selected colour, replacing anything already in it.
• Eraser has two modes: tap an area to clear all of its colour, or drag across strokes to erase only the part you touch.
• Nib size sets how thick Paintbrush, Pencil, and Eraser strokes are. When you first open an artwork, it is set to about halfway along the slider.
• Find next area zooms in on the next area you have not coloured yet, which helps with small areas that are easy to miss.
• Undo and Redo step back and forward through your recent changes.
• Zoom to fit shows the whole page again. To get closer for fine work, pinch to zoom and pan with two fingers (or one finger, if finger drawing is turned off). With a hardware keyboard, you can also press = to zoom in and - to zoom out.
• Reset erases all your work on the page so you can start again. This cannot be undone.

The palette and Tone slider

Tap a swatch to pick a colour, and scroll the palette to see more. A thin bar on each swatch fills as you colour more of its areas, and a checkmark appears once every area in that colour is filled.

The Tone slider beside the palette adjusts the selected colour. The line in the middle marks the swatch's original colour. Slide left for a richer, more saturated tone, or right to wash it out towards white.

Apple Pencil and finger drawing

You can draw with Apple Pencil, your finger, or both. The first time you use Apple Pencil on the page, Colour Within asks whether you want to draw only with Apple Pencil. Tapping to fill an area works either way.

You can change this later in Settings:

• Pencil Only Drawing lets only Apple Pencil draw while your finger pans and zooms.
• Disable Finger Drawing stops finger strokes from painting, even without an Apple Pencil paired. Tapping to fill still works.
• Finger Pressure sets how dark finger-drawn strokes are. Lighter settings feel more like a pencil.

The highlight

The highlight shows every area that uses the selected colour. To begin with, it is a checkerboard pattern over the areas you have not coloured yet.

Use the Highlight button in the colouring toolbar to switch the highlight's border and background on or off separately. Tap Customise to open the highlight editor, which shows a preview as you make changes. In the editor you can choose:

• the border's colour, line style, width, and opacity, whether it shows on empty areas, filled areas, or both, and whether it gently pulses (it stays steady when Reduce Motion is on)
• the background's pattern (Checkerboard, Stripes, Dots, or Solid), one or two colours, size, and opacity. The background only shows on areas you have not coloured yet.

Choose Auto for a colour that stands out against the selected palette colour. You can also change the highlight from Settings > Highlight.

Area numbers

Each area shows its number when you zoom in far enough. As you pan and zoom, the number moves within its area to stay in view. Every number is drawn in whichever colour stands out best against its area, and the highlight pattern fades away behind it.

To change how big the numbers are, go to Settings > Label Size. You can use your iPad's default text size or set a custom size.

A few areas are too small to show a number, even at full zoom. Colour Within fills these for you once you have coloured around them. If you would rather colour them yourself, turn off Automatic Fill in Settings. The change takes effect the next time you open a page.

Keeping area numbers visible

The highlight menu includes a Keep area numbers visible option. When it is on, each area number stays visible after you colour the area. Your choice is remembered when you leave and reopen the app.

Help while colouring

The toolbar help button opens a labelled guide to the colouring tools and controls. Colour Within also shows a few small first-time tips, such as for the palette and the highlight, then points you back to the help card if you want the full guide again. The highlight editor has its own help button too.

Saving and returning

Your progress is saved on your iPad as you colour. Started pages appear in My Work, where you can continue, review, share, or delete them later.

If you come back to Colour Within within four hours, it reopens the page you were colouring. If you close the page yourself first, the app opens normally.

Finishing a page

When every area has some colour, Colour Within shows a This page seems complete banner. Tap its checkmark, or use Mark as done in the colouring toolbar at any time, when a page feels finished enough for now. If some areas are still empty, you are asked to confirm first.

The finished page lets you share your work, return to the Library, or tap Keep Colouring to carry on. The page gets a done badge in My Work, and you can still open it later to add more colour.

After you finish a page, Colour Within may ask whether you enjoyed it. Your answer helps us choose future artwork. You do not have to answer.

If you prefer the Library to show only pages you have not finished yet, turn on Hide done artwork from Library in Settings. Pages you have marked as done will still appear in My Work.

Timelapses

When you mark a page as done, Colour Within makes a short timelapse video of your colouring. You can watch it on the finished page or in My Work, then save or share it. Stay on the page while the timelapse is being made. If you leave the app, it stops, and you can tap Create Timelapse to start it again.

Timelapses can play with music. Each finished page gets a short piece chosen for it, and the music stays with the video when you share it. Timelapses made before music arrived stay silent unless you mark the page as done again, which makes a new timelapse with music.

Timelapses are made on your iPad and are only shared when you choose. In Settings, you can turn off Create Timelapse Videos, or keep them on and turn off Add Music to Timelapses to make future timelapses without music. Turning music off does not change videos you have already made.

Colouring from before version 1.1 was not recorded. For pages started before then, the timelapse begins from where the page was when you first opened it after updating.

Sharing your work

Use Share in the colouring toolbar to export a PNG image of your page as it is now. You can also share finished pages and their timelapses from My Work.

Shared images include a small Colour Within footer. To choose a light or dark footer, go to Settings > Share Image Style.

Deleting work

To delete a saved colouring session, open My Work, press and hold the drawing, then choose Delete. To delete everything in My Work at once, use Clear My Work in Settings. This removes every started and finished page from your iPad, but does not affect your subscription or downloaded artwork.

Deleted drawings cannot be recovered.

Other settings

• Theme follows your iPad's appearance (Auto), or you can choose Light or Dark.
• Sidebar Position places the colouring sidebar on the left or right. You can also drag it to move it.
• Ad & Data Privacy Choices reopens the ad and data consent options. It only appears where these choices are required, such as in the UK and EU.

Subscription and ads

Colour Within is free with ads. Ads appear in the Library, when you start or stop colouring an artwork, before sharing from My Work, and sometimes when you return to the app. Opening or leaving today's Daily page never shows an ad, and there are never ads while you are colouring.

The ad-free subscription removes ads everywhere in the app. It does not unlock extra artworks, tools, or tiers. To subscribe, choose Remove ads in Settings. To restore a subscription on a new iPad, use Restore Purchases.

Feedback

If something feels rough, confusing, broken, or visually odd, a short report helps. Screenshots are especially useful for artwork and interface issues. Send Feedback in Settings, under About, takes you to our support page.

If you enjoy Colour Within, you can leave a rating with Rate Colour Within in Settings, under About.

If you are testing through TestFlight, please file feedback from TestFlight with the build number visible.

You can email feedback, questions, and private support requests to team@colourwithin.app.

Need more help?

The FAQ has subscription notes, crash-reporting guidance, and privacy-related help. The support page has direct contact details.