Sketch 2026.3.1 — Mac version

Sketch is a Mac-native vector design app built for screen work.

Website layouts, app icons, and UI design speedups

• Website layouts and page mockups
• App icons and interface elements
• Mobile and desktop UI design
• Speeding up workflows with third-party plugins

Requires Sequoia and skips photo editing

• Needs macOS Sequoia 15.0.0 or newer — won't run on older systems
• Interface only in English and Simplified Chinese
• No built-in photo editing — it's a vector and layout tool

Designing a simple app icon from scratch

Most people open Sketch and draw a rectangle straight away. That works, but starting with a clear artboard saves headaches later. Here's a walkthrough for a basic app icon, the sort you'd need for a side project.

1. Press A to choose the Artboard tool. Pick the App Icon > iPhone preset from the Inspector — it gives you a 1024×1024 pt square ready to export at all the right sizes.
2. Hit R for a rectangle, drag it to fill the artboard, then round the corners using the Inspector. A radius around 180 pt feels right for an iOS-style squircle.
3. Add a gradient fill instead of flat colour. Click the fill swatch, pick Linear Gradient, and tweak the angle. Two colours, close on the spectrum, keep it clean.
4. Drop a simple shape on top — try O for an oval, hold Shift to keep it circular. Centre it using the alignment buttons top-right of the canvas.
5. Group the layers (Cmd+G), then hit the Export button bottom-right. Choose PNG at 1x, 2x and 3x. Sketch can generate all three in one go if you tick the sizes.
6. Use the Preview window (Cmd+P) to check how the icon reads at small sizes. Blurry details at 16 px mean you need bolder shapes.

Starting without an artboard leaves exports frameless

New Sketch users tend to hit the same snags. Spotting them early keeps a project moving.

• Drawing without artboards. Layers float free on an infinite canvas. When you export, Sketch has no frame of reference for dimensions. Always start with an artboard — even for rough ideas.
• Ignoring the grid. Pixel-perfect work needs snapping. Turn on the grid (Ctrl+G) and set it to 8 pt or 10 pt. It stops icons landing on half-pixels, which makes edges fuzzy on export.
• Too many nested groups. Grouping a group inside a group inside another group gets messy fast. Use the Layer List to flatten things. If you can't name a group in three words, it's doing too much.
• Text layers with fixed widths. Dragging a text box sets a fixed width. Click once on the canvas instead, and the text layer grows with your words. Saves realigning everything when copy changes.
• Skipping Symbols early on. If you copy-paste the same button or icon across six screens, turn it into a Symbol (right-click > Create Symbol). Update one, they all follow.

Tick zoom-into-selection in Canvas prefs

Sketch works straight out of the box, but a few tweaks in the first hour make everything smoother later.

Open Preferences (Cmd+,) and head to the Canvas tab. Tick Zoom into selection on double-click — it stops you scrolling into the void when inspecting a layer. While you're there, switch on Show pixel grid on zoom so it only appears close up, not all the time.

Spend fifteen minutes with the Insert menu. Hover over each shape to learn its shortcut — L for line, V for vector point mode, U for rounded rectangle. Your right hand stays on the mouse, left hand on the keyboard. After a day it feels natural.

If you've moved over from another tool, check the Sketch Migration Assistant under the File menu. It pulls in Figma or Adobe XD files, though complex layouts sometimes need a tidy-up once imported.

Before any real work, build yourself a tiny library with three or four reusable bits: a button, a heading style, a colour palette. Open the Components view (top-left toolbar, the grid icon) and drag your elements in. Every new document you create can pull from that same library, so you're not re-drawing the same button next week.

One last thing: the Terminal window during install is normal. If you grabbed a Sketch torrent or a Sketch 2025.1 build from a friend, Gatekeeper puts up a fuss. The installer script handles that — press Enter, let it work, then forget about it. The app behaves like any other native Mac program after that.

• Document windows now match the system corner radius
• Stack layout bug fixed: text layers with a minimum width now behave properly
• Renamed-selected-layers text alignment sorted on macOS Golden Gate
• Florence release features and macOS 27 Golden Gate enhancements included

• macOS 14 or later
• Intel 64-bit or Apple Silicon Mac