Peel & Stick’s aesthetic sticky notes for Mac come in 16 papers in all, 12 paper stocks plus 4 cloud styles, each drawn by the app rather than photographed. The 4 free papers are “Canary”, “Soft Pink”, “Mint” and “Vellum Blue”, which turns see-through once you pin it. Peel & Stick Pro adds the other 8 papers and the 4 clouds.
The default pad on the “Board”, the frosted tray of three pads: a tall slip with room for a long list. Press ⌘1 to write on it. Each sheet you peel off hands you the next color in its run of “Mint”, “Canary”, “Soft Pink” and “Vellum Blue”.
A short, wide pad that leads with “Vellum Blue”, then “Mint”, “Canary” and “Soft Pink”. Press ⌘2 to write on it. Its sheets look solid on the pad; a “Vellum Blue” note turns see-through once you pin it.
A pad of clouds you write on in raised letters, running through “Cumulus”, “Cirrus”, “Nimbus” and “Stratus”. With Peel & Stick Pro, press ⌘3 to write on it. It isn’t cloud storage and nothing syncs. Without Pro, the pad shows a preview, and clicking it opens “Peel & Stick Pro”.
A single yellow pad that takes the place of the Board, for when you want a simple notes app for Mac. Press ⌥⌘B to switch; your notes stay where they are. Each new sheet uses the paper you chose last, “Canary” to begin with.
Saturated yellow sticky-note stock, the Classic pad’s own color.
#FCE368 #FFDB2A #3A2F12
Soft pink dyed stock with a fine, even grain.
#FEC6D7 #FF8AAE #3A0A17
Fresh mint-green dyed stock with a fine, even grain.
#9FF0CC #66EFB2 #0B3B29
Thin blue paper; once pinned, your desktop shows through, softly blurred (solid under Reduce Transparency).
#BADFFB #7DC7FD #10344F
Tan unbleached kraft board with a coarse grain and visible fibers.
#D4A66C #CF8C38 #231301
A near-white sheet printed with a blue grid.
#FCFDFF #EAF0F6 #23282F
Pale yellow with blue ruled lines and a red margin rule.
#FAF1A3 #FEEE65 #2B2913
Dark indigo card with pale text; an ink you pick on it comes in its paler version.
#17254A #0E1831 #E6EDFC
Warm flax with a coarse texture and visible fibers.
#F7EAD4 #F2D49E #3B3119
Violet-black card with a pink edge and a pink-tinted glue band; inks you pick on it come in their paler versions.
#1E0E3D #110722 #F2E4FF
Dyed pink washi with visible fibers.
#FDE5ED #FDABC7 #421426
Bottle-green slate with a wiped-chalk wash; inks you pick on it come in their paler versions.
#204A32 #163323 #ECF5E9
A bright white cloud, written on in raised letters.
#FFFFFF #DCE6F2 #33475E
An icy blue-white cloud, written on in raised letters.
#FBFDFF #C9DDF6 #22466F
A soft gray cloud, written on in raised letters.
#F7F8FA #CDD3DB #2E3642
A blue-gray cloud, written on in raised letters.
#EEF2F8 #B7C4D6 #1F2A3A
Every paper sheet in Peel & Stick is drawn by the app in layers: a color that shades from the top of the sheet to the bottom, any printed lines, a grain, a glue band across the top 17% of the sheet, and edges shaded as if lit from the top left. Peel & Stick contains no scan or photo of paper.
Each sheet gets its own arrangement of grain, generated by the app, and it stays the same every time you open Peel & Stick. Most papers have a fine, even grain. For kraft paper notes, “Kraft” is coarse with visible fibers, as is “Linen”; “Washi” shows its fibers too, and “Chalkboard” has a coarse slate surface.
Three papers carry markings. For graph paper notes on your Mac, “Graph” is a near-white sheet printed with a blue grid. For a legal pad on your Mac, “Legal Pad” is pale yellow with blue ruled lines and a red margin rule. “Chalkboard” has a wiped-chalk wash across its slate. The markings belong to the paper: switch a note to another paper and they change with it, while your words and drawings stay as they are.
Each paper comes with its own text color, dark on light papers and pale on dark ones. By the app’s own measurements, that text has a contrast of at least 6:1 against its paper, from the top of the sheet to the bottom. The glue band also holds the note’s title: when the first line is plain text, it is set in bold across the band.
The four clouds are not paper. Each is a cloud shape with no glue band, drawn a shade short of opaque, so whatever is behind a pinned cloud shows faintly through, and its words sit in raised letters. With Reduce Transparency turned on in macOS, clouds and “Vellum Blue” are drawn solid.
Click the color bead in the tools (“Choose Ink”) to open the picker. Its presets, “The Nine Inks”, are “Graphite”, “Vermilion”, “Tangerine”, “Amber”, “Meadow”, “Teal”, “Cobalt”, “Violet” and “Magenta”. One choice loads the pen in your hand and colors your words: the words you have selected, or, if nothing is selected, the words you type next.
Every ink comes in two versions under one name. Pick an ink on “Midnight”, “Neon Tokyo” or “Chalkboard” and Peel & Stick uses its paler version, so “Cobalt” is still “Cobalt”, only light enough to read on dark card. Words you colored on a light paper keep that color if you move the note to a dark one. After you switch, select those words and choose the ink again.
To go beyond the nine, drag in the picker’s color square and hue bar, or type six digits in “Hex Value”. The “Contrast with the paper” readout shows the contrast ratio between your color and the current paper, and below 3:1 it adds “Hard to read on this paper”. It only warns; it never changes the color you picked.
The inks and the picker are free on every plan, and so are the “Pen” and the “Eraser”. “Marker”, “Highlighter” and “Fountain Pen” come with Peel & Stick Pro. More on writing and drawing in handwritten sticky notes on Mac.
On light paper
Graphite#22242CVermilion#D5121CTangerine#C25100Amber#B57F00Meadow#0B9450Teal#00838FCobalt#1450D2Violet#661CCEMagenta#C40A76On dark paper
Graphite#EDEFF5Vermilion#FF6B70Tangerine#FFA33DAmber#FFCF3DMeadow#4FE594Teal#35D6E2Cobalt#6FA8FFViolet#B98AFFMagenta#FF6FBDWrite on the top sheet of a pad. If the note is already pinned, double-click it, or hover over it and click “Edit on the Pad”, to send it back.
On the Board, move the pointer onto the three dots at the pad’s edge (“Tools”). On the Classic pad the tools are always out.
Click the Aa button, “Type & Paper”, then “Paper”. All 16 papers are listed in the order shown on this page, with a checkmark on the note’s current paper and a padlock on each paper that needs Peel & Stick Pro.
Click any paper without a padlock. The sheet changes at once, and your words and drawings stay as they are.
A paper with a padlock opens “Peel & Stick Pro”, which shows every Pro paper, drawn the way your notes are, before you decide.
Peel the sheet from its bottom edge to pin it in its new paper. Without Peel & Stick Pro, up to 3 notes can be pinned at once. On the Classic pad, the next fresh sheet uses this paper too.
“Canary”, “Soft Pink”, “Mint” and “Vellum Blue”, four colorful papers that need no Pro. The “Tall pad” and the “Vellum pad” both run through them, one color per sheet, which helps when you color-code sticky notes for studying.
Yes. Locked papers stay in “Type & Paper” (Aa) ▸ “Paper” with a padlock. Choose one, or click the “Cloud pad”, and the “Peel & Stick Pro” screen opens. It shows every Pro paper, the 4 clouds included, drawn the same way as your notes, not as pictures.
You can also compare what each plan includes on the home page.
Yes. For dark sticky notes on your Mac, Peel & Stick Pro has three dark papers: “Midnight”, a dark indigo card; “Neon Tokyo”, violet-black with a pink edge; and “Chalkboard”, a bottle-green slate. On each, your words are drawn in a pale color, and any of the nine inks you pick there comes in a paler version under the same name. Words you colored on a light paper keep that color, so select them and choose the ink again after you switch.
Yes. For transparent sticky notes on your Mac, use “Vellum Blue”, one of the 4 free papers. It turns see-through once you pin it: whatever is behind it shows through, softly blurred. On the pad it looks solid, and with Reduce Transparency turned on in macOS it stays solid when pinned too.
The Pro clouds are drawn a shade short of opaque, so whatever is behind a pinned cloud shows faintly through. More on sticky notes on your Mac desktop.
No. The grain is generated by the app and drawn together with each sheet’s color, glue band and edges. Each sheet keeps the same grain every time you open Peel & Stick.
Yes. With the note on its pad, open the tools and choose “Type & Paper” (Aa) ▸ “Paper”, then any paper without a padlock; with Peel & Stick Pro, you can choose any of the 16. Your words and drawings stay as they are. To change a pinned note, double-click it to send it back to its pad first.
No. The “Cloud pad” is a pad of cloud-shaped notes you write on in raised letters. Nothing syncs: your notes are stored on your Mac, and Peel & Stick has no server and doesn’t send your notes anywhere.
Not in the app today. Every Pro paper and all 4 clouds come with Peel & Stick Pro, as a monthly or yearly subscription or a one-time purchase. See what you can do without Pro.
The pad is ready. Write on the top sheet, then peel it off.
macOS 13 Ventura or later · Mac only · App interface in English