Eyedropper tool online
Sample a colour from anywhere on your screen — another app, a video, a PDF — and get its codes instantly. On phones and in Safari or Firefox, use a screenshot instead.
Screenshot picker (works everywhere)
Paste a screenshot with Ctrl+V / ⌘+V, drag it here, or choose a file. Then click the pixel you want.
How the browser eyedropper works
Chromium browsers expose an EyeDropper API. When you press the button, the page asks the browser to open a system-level magnifier. The operating system reads the pixel under your click and hands back just that one colour as an sRGB HEX value. The page never sees a picture of your screen, which is why the API only runs after a deliberate click.
One caveat: on wide-gamut (Display P3) monitors, the OS converts the pixel to sRGB, so an extremely saturated colour on screen can come back slightly less saturated. For design work that’s the value you want anyway — it’s what the colour will be in CSS.
For colours inside an image file, the image colour picker is more precise: it reads the file’s own pixels, unaffected by screen scaling or night-mode filters.
Questions people ask
Is there an eyedropper tool I can use online?
Yes — in Chrome, Edge and Opera on desktop, press “Pick from screen”. Your cursor becomes a magnifier that can sample any pixel on your screen, including other apps and windows. In Safari, Firefox and on phones, take a screenshot and use the image picker on this page instead.
Why don’t I see the “Pick from screen” button?
It uses the browser’s EyeDropper API, which is currently only available in Chromium-based desktop browsers (Chrome, Edge, Opera, Brave, Arc). Everywhere else we show the screenshot-based picker automatically.
Can the eyedropper see other programs, not just this tab?
Yes. The browser eyedropper can sample anything visible on your displays — Photoshop, a PDF viewer, a video frame — because the operating system handles the sampling, not the page.
Does the website see my screen?
No. The browser only returns the single colour you clicked, after you clicked it. The page never receives an image of your screen.