Choose a system palette when you need colors available beyond Affinity on your Mac. Choose a linked application palette when you want palette edits synchronized between Affinity V2 apps on that same Mac. The destination of your colors determines the useful option.

This guide helps a Mac desktop user set up one reusable color collection. Its procedures use the official Affinity Designer 2 documentation, including the documented V2 linking workflow. Affinity’s separate Designer help explicitly identifies itself as V1 documentation; keep those instructions separate when following older tutorials. Affinity Designer V1: Swatches panel

Which palette matches your sharing task?

A system palette is stored by the operating system and is available within Affinity Designer and other installed apps. The official help marks this palette type as macOS-specific. An application palette is stored within Affinity Designer and is available across its documents. Affinity Designer 2: Swatches panel

Linking adds another behavior: edits to a linked palette in one Affinity app automatically appear in the other linked Affinity apps on the same device. The linking documentation specifies Affinity V2 or later and identifies application palettes as the linkable swatch collections. Linking custom content across apps

Your concrete task Recommended starting point What to verify
Reuse colors in Affinity and another Mac app System palette Can the destination app access the palette?
Maintain one evolving palette across Affinity V2 apps on one Mac Linked application palette Does a test edit appear in the second app?
Reuse colors only within Designer Application palette Is the collection available in another Designer document?
Carry a palette inside a particular design file Document palette Is the palette saved with that document?

This decision aid separates two questions: where must the collection be available, and where must edits propagate? For example, a palette intended for a separate presentation app calls for checking macOS palette access. A collection maintained across Designer 2 and Publisher 2 calls for application-palette linking. Treat these as separate acceptance tests.

How do you set up a system palette on Mac?

In Designer 2, open the Swatches panel through the Window menu if it is hidden. Affinity documents panel visibility under that menu. Customizing the workspace

For a new collection, open Panel Preferences and choose the system-palette option among the palette-creation choices. Select your palette, target the intended fill or stroke with the color selector, then use Add current color to palette. Swatches panel

If you already have a palette file, use the Swatches panel’s Panel Preferences menu, open Import Palette, and select the system palette type. Browse to the file and click Open. The Mac import documentation lists .afpalette, Adobe Swatch Exchange .ase, and .clr palette files. Extract a supplied ZIP archive before importing its contents. Importing add-ons

Next, check the actual destination app. Look for the collection in its available palette controls and apply one color to a disposable shape or text sample. This is a recommended verification step, not a reported test result. Affinity’s statement of system availability does not establish the exact menu path in every other Mac application.

How do you link an application palette between Affinity apps?

Start with an application palette in Designer 2. In Swatches, select it, open Panel Preferences, and choose Link Palette. Open another installed Affinity V2 app on the same Mac and locate the collection. Affinity documents this sequence specifically for application palettes. Linking custom content across apps

For a palette supplied as a file, first import it using the application palette type in Import Palette. Manually imported content initially belongs to the importing app; linking is an optional subsequent step. Content installed through Affinity’s Account feature is documented as automatically available across Affinity 2.0 or later apps on the same device. Its installation route therefore matters when diagnosing why two palettes behave differently. About add-ons

Use a temporary palette for your first synchronization check. Give it a distinctive name, add a neutral sample color, link it, and inspect it in the second app. Then change the sample swatch in the first app and inspect the second again. Check both initial availability and the subsequent edit; merely finding two collections with matching names does not demonstrate synchronization.

Duplicating linked content creates an unlinked copy. Deleting a linked palette removes it only from that app, while it remains linked elsewhere until only one instance remains. These documented behaviors help explain why a customized copy or a missing collection may behave differently. Linking custom content across apps

Will linked palettes recolor existing artwork?

Palette synchronization and document recoloring are separate tasks. For automatic changes to objects using a shared color within a design, Affinity documents global colors: edit the global color and objects using it update together. Global colors belong to document palettes. Global colors

For example, imagine a synthetic layout with three rectangular tiles that should always share one accent. Select a document palette in Swatches, choose Add Global Color from Panel Preferences, configure the color, and click Add. Apply that global swatch to the three tiles. Later, edit the global swatch to update those uses. This is an illustrative workflow, not an observed project result. Global colors

Preserve that document palette if its global relationships matter. Affinity explicitly states that importing a document palette containing global colors as a system or application palette converts them to standard colors. Choose the palette destination before importing; otherwise, you may retain the color choices while losing the behavior you intended to preserve. Global colors

How do you move the palette to another Mac?

Use export and import for another device. Affinity recommends linking for multiple apps on one device and exporting custom content for transfer between devices. In Swatches, select the palette, choose Export Palette from Panel Preferences, select a location, and click Save. The exported palette format is .afpalette. Exporting add-ons

On the destination Mac, import the file into the palette type that serves its intended use. Keep track of which exported file represents your latest approved collection for your own workflow. File transfer supplies a collection to import; the documented same-device link should not be treated as a cross-Mac synchronization service.

Choose by the next place you need to use or edit the colors. For use beyond Affinity, create a system palette and check the destination app. For coordinated palette edits inside the V2 suite, link an application palette. For coordinated recoloring inside a design, retain a document palette with global colors. A small disposable test makes each outcome easy to confirm before you build the full collection.

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