The best whiteboard apps for Mac in 2026

Koi is an all-in-one Mac assistant, and Koi 2.0 adds an endless board that works like Excalidraw, drawn by the app itself, not a web page. Folded, it's a widget on your wallpaper, under every window and on every Space, showing the board as you left it. Click it and it grows into a big window. Esc or ⌘W folds it back onto the desktop. It also opens from Board in the notch.

The tools are Excalidraw's, with the same letters: select, rectangle, diamond, ellipse, arrows that hold on to shapes, lines, a pen, text, an eraser, a laser pointer, a lasso and a bucket. There are sticky notes, frames, groups, a right-click menu, photo frames like a Polaroid, stickers and paper backgrounds. Export as PNG, PDF or SVG. Mermaid to diagram runs on your Mac; Text to diagram and Wireframe to code use Koi's AI, only when you ask, and so does the chat bar at the bottom, where you ask Koi to draw on the board with you. Tables and ten templates are built in.

Each board is a file in Koi's data folder on your Mac, never uploaded. Like any window, Koi's AI sees a board on screen when your screen goes with a question. Where it loses: no live collaboration, no sync and no iPhone or iPad app. It isn't sold on its own: Koi is $20 a month or $7 for a first week, or Lifetime, paid once, with dictation, call recording and an assistant in the same app.

Freeform is Apple's own board app, free, and it needs macOS 13.1 or later. Boards sync through iCloud, so the same board is on your iPhone and iPad, and you can work on one with other people in real time. You can export a board as a PDF.

Apple's new Creator Studio subscription adds premium content and AI features to Freeform, listed as coming later, but the app itself stays free.

tldraw is a free whiteboard at tldraw.com. Since July 16, 2026 there's also tldraw offline: a free desktop app for macOS (one download for Apple silicon and Intel), Windows and Linux. It needs no account and no server, and saves your boards as .tldraw files wherever you pick. It also has a local API that AI agents can use to draw.

It's the closest thing to Koi's “kept on your Mac” board, and it costs nothing. It's not open source, and it's a window you open, not a board on your desktop.

Excalidraw is free in the browser. Its pricing page lists the free version with one infinite scene, unlimited collaborators, export to PNG, SVG and file, and 10 AI requests a day. Excalidraw+ is $6 per user a month, and paying yearly saves 14%.

There's no Excalidraw app for Mac: the old desktop app was retired in 2020, and Excalidraw tells you to install the web app instead. Your drawing lives in the browser's storage, so clearing the site's data clears it too, unless you saved a .excalidraw file. Our guide covers putting Excalidraw on your Mac.

Miro is the team whiteboard: templates, workshops and many people on one board. On the free plan you can make as many boards as you like, but only the 3 most recently edited stay editable, exports are low resolution, and boards can't be shared privately. Starter is $8 and Business $20 per member a month, billed yearly. Boards live in Miro's cloud. More in our Miro alternatives.

FigJam is Figma's whiteboard. The Starter plan is free with limited access. A Collab seat is $3 a month on the Professional plan, and $5 a month on Organization and Enterprise, billed yearly. Boards live in Figma's cloud.

Canvas comes free with Obsidian. A canvas is a file in your vault, in the open JSON Canvas format, so it stays on your Mac like your notes. It lays out notes, pictures and cards with lines between them. For the hand-drawn look, Excalidraw runs inside Obsidian through a community plugin.

Milanote is a board for notes, pictures and links, made for creative work. The free plan holds 100 notes, images or links and 10 file uploads. Paid is $9.99 a month billed yearly, or $12.50 month to month, and Team is $49 a month, billed yearly. Boards live in Milanote's cloud.