Sketch how it
actually works
PillPad is a native Mac whiteboard for the diagram you draw in a meeting: name a pill after a person, draw a boundary round a team and call it a department, then pull a labelled arrow between them. Nothing rearranges itself behind your back.
macOS 14+ · Apple Silicon & Intel · notarized · plain JSON files · no subscription
A whiteboard that behaves like a Mac app.
Fast, native and keyboard-friendly, built for drawing live in front of people: no browser tab, no account, no subscription, and the file stays on your Mac in a format you can actually read.
Pills, not boxes
Drop a pill, type a name, move on. Give it a colour to mark the manager, an SF Symbol or a pair of initials, and resize it with handles on all eight sides.
→ A person on the board in two seconds.
Departments that move together
Drag a boundary round a cluster and label it: Development, Main Office, whatever it is. Drag a pill inside and the group adopts it. Move the group and the team goes with it, and groups can nest.
→ Structure you can pick up and reposition.
Labelled flows
Drag from the edge of one pill to another and let go: straight, curved or right-angled, arrowheads at either end or both, dashed if you like. Click the line to label it reports to or signs off. Connect to a whole department, not just a person.
→ The relationship, spelled out.
Not only org charts
Rectangles, ellipses, diamonds, lines, free text anywhere on the canvas, and images you drag straight in from the Finder. The Process Flow template starts you off with a row of steps already wired together.
→ Any diagram you would sketch by hand.
Undo everything
Every move, resize, recolour, group and delete is one step on the standard Mac undo stack, and a whole drag is a single step rather than forty. Documents autosave and keep Versions.
→ Sketch freely, nothing is precious.
Keyboard and trackpad
One-key tools, shortcuts for duplicate, group, ungroup and z-order, pinch and scroll to zoom, space to pan, and an inspector on the right for whatever is selected.
→ Keep up with the conversation.
Export for the deck
Save the canvas as a crisp 2x PNG, or a PDF whose text stays real and selectable. Cropped to your content, with no grid and no selection handles.
→ Straight into the slide after the meeting.
A file you can read
A .pillpad document is plain JSON, pretty printed and diffable, one
file rather than a bundle. Keep it in iCloud Drive, Dropbox or a git repo. The
Source view lets you edit that JSON live, beside the canvas.
→ Your diagram, not a locked format.
Let a chat model draft it
PillPad hands you the format guide to paste into ChatGPT or Claude. Ask for the
chart, save the JSON it writes as a .pillpad, and open it. There is a
--validate flag to check a file first.
→ Describe the org, get a starting point.
Questions, answered
Is there a free diagramming app for Mac?
Yes. PillPad is a native macOS diagramming whiteboard, free while in beta. Sketch org charts, process flows and freeform diagrams, then export to PNG or PDF. It is Developer ID signed and Apple notarized, universal for Apple Silicon and Intel, macOS 14 and later.
How do I make an org chart on a Mac?
Start from the Org Structure template, or from a blank canvas. Drop a pill and type a person's name, repeat for the team, then drag a boundary round a cluster and label it as a department. Drag from the edge of the manager's pill to another pill to draw a flow, and click the line to label it, for example reports to. Nothing is auto-arranged, so the chart matches how you would have drawn it on a whiteboard.
What file format does PillPad use?
A .pillpad document is a single plain JSON file, pretty printed with sorted keys. It is one file rather than a bundle, so it sits happily in iCloud Drive, Dropbox or a git repository, and it is readable and diffable. PillPad also has a Source view that lets you edit that JSON live beside the canvas, with a clear message if you mistype something.
Can I export a diagram to PNG or PDF?
Yes. Export the canvas as a PNG at 2x for a slide or an email, or as a PDF whose text stays real and selectable. Both are cropped to your content with a margin, and neither includes the grid or the selection handles.
Can I add images to a diagram?
Yes. Drag a picture onto the canvas, paste one, or use Insert then Image. Fit it to its frame or fill and crop it, give it a border and rounded corners, and point flows at it like any other element. The picture is stored inside the document, so a canvas you send someone arrives complete, and large photos are resized on the way in to keep the file small.
Can ChatGPT or Claude draw a diagram for PillPad?
Yes. PillPad ships the format guide it wants a model to follow, under Help then LLM Instructions, or on the command line with --instructions. Paste that into ChatGPT or Claude, ask for the diagram you want, save the JSON it replies with as a .pillpad file and open it. Use --validate to check a file before you open it, and --open to hand it straight to the app.
Is this a Miro or Whimsical alternative?
For sketching a structure on your own, yes, and it is a native Mac app rather than a browser tab: no account, no workspace to join, no subscription, and the file is yours. What it deliberately does not do in version 1 is real-time multi-user collaboration or cloud sync. If you want several people drawing on one board at once, those tools remain the right answer.
How much does PillPad cost?
Free during beta, with a Developer ID signed, Apple notarized build and auto-updates. No subscription. It becomes a one-time perpetual licence at version 1.0, and beta users are first in line.
No subscription.
PillPad is free while in beta. Like the rest of the bench, it will become a one-time perpetual licence at 1.0: the app you bought keeps working forever, renew only if you want newer builds.
- Every feature, no caps
- Auto-updates included
- Perpetual licence at 1.0, beta users first in line