I Built a Windows 11 Style Color Picker for Linux That Doesn’t Suck

If you design websites, tweak themes, or build user interfaces on Linux, you already know the pain of sampling colors from your screen.

Most of the time, your workflow looks something like this:

You spot a nice shade in a browser window or video.
You take a full screenshot, save it to disk, and open it in GIMP or Figma just to use an eyedropper tool.
Or you run a tiny Python eyedropper utility that takes two seconds to launch, has no pixel zoom, and makes you guess which sub-pixel you’re clicking on.
Once you finally grab the HEX code, you realize your CSS file needs rgba() or hsl(), so you head over to a web browser to convert it manually.

On Windows, Microsoft PowerToys solved this years ago with its built-in Color Picker Win + Shift + C. You press a shortcut, zoom into any pixel with a magnifying reticle, click once, and get the color in every format you could ever need.

I wanted that exact fluid, zero-friction experience on Linux—so we built it natively into MagicToys.

Here is how the new Color Picker works and why it makes UI work on Linux feel effortless.

How It Works: The 2-Second Flow

Whenever you need a color anywhere on your desktop, hit Alt + Shift + C:


[Alt + Shift + C] ──> [Magnifier Loupe Tracking Cursor] ──> [Click Target Pixel] ──> [Instant Copy & Color Inspector]

1. The Real-Time Magnifier Loupe

The moment you press the shortcut, a magnifying bubble attaches itself to your cursor. As you move around the screen, it renders a zoomed-in pixel grid centered on a precision crosshair reticle.

Right next to the loupe, a floating badge displays the live HEX value of whatever pixel you’re hovering over in real time. No guessing, no misclicks on antialiased edges.

2. Single-Click Capture & Auto-Copy

Click the pixel you want. The color is immediately copied straight to your clipboard (you can set the default format to HEX, RGB, HSL, HSV, or CMYK in Preferences).

3. The Windows 11 Style Color Inspector

Right after sampling, a compact, modern Color Inspector window appears:

Large Color Swatch: See the exact sampled color clearly.
Multi-Format Codes: Get instant one-click copy buttons for HEX, RGB, HSL, HSV, and CMYK.
Live Shade Variations Palette: Automatically generates a smooth ramp of lighter and darker tones derived from your color—perfect for creating hover states, borders, and shadows in CSS without doing manual color math.
Recent Color History: Keeps your last sampled colors in a quick-access strip at the top so you can jump between palette colors while designing.

Why It’s Built Differently

Many Linux utilities are glued together with Python scripts, heavy web frameworks, or slow screenshot wrappers. MagicToys is built in pure Rust and Slint UI:

Zero Launch Latency: The loupe overlay activates in under 5 milliseconds. It takes an instantaneous in-memory snapshot of your screen without writing temporary files to your disk.
Wayland & X11 Native: Fully functional on Ubuntu, Fedora, Arch Linux, Pop!_OS, Linux Mint, openSUSE, BigLinux, and tiling window managers (Hyprland, Sway, i3).
Tiny Resource Footprint: The entire background utility uses around 15 MB of RAM—virtually invisible to your system.
Zero Cloud Dependence: 100% local, offline, and private.

Built-In Settings & Customization

Inside the MagicToys Preferences window, you have full control over how Color Picker behaves:

Auto-Copy on Click: Enable or disable automatic clipboard copying.
Default Copy Format: Choose whether clicking copies HEX (#f97316), RGB (rgb(249, 115, 22)), HSL (hsl(25, 95%, 53%)), HSV, or CMYK directly.
Color Inspector Toggle: Choose whether to open the deep Color Inspector window or just silently grab the color to your clipboard and keep moving.
Customizable Global Shortcut: Change the shortcut from Alt + Shift + Cto anything you prefer. The built-in recorder listens to your keystrokes live, claims exclusive keyboard control so system shortcuts don't interfere, and warns you if there's any conflict with other apps.

How to Install MagicToys

You can install MagicToys on any Linux distro with a single command:


curl -sS https://magictoys.ople.in/install.sh | bash

Or grab the pre-built packages directly from GitHub Releases:

Ubuntu / Debian / Linux Mint / Pop!_OS: .deb package
Fedora / RHEL / openSUSE: .rpm package
Arch Linux / Manjaro / BigLinux: .pkg.tar.zst package
Universal Linux: Standalone .AppImage or .tar.gz

Once installed, just press Alt + Shift + C and start sampling!

Open Source & Community

MagicToys is free and open source under the GNU General Public License v3.0.

If you find it useful in your day-to-day workflow, consider dropping a star on GitHub—it helps more Linux developers discover the project!

🌐 Website: magictoys.ople.in
⭐ GitHub: github.com/HeyAtulVerma/MagicToys