The Palette Library

The Palette Library brings together the palettes Suisai can find on your Mac, wherever their files are stored.

Open it with ⇧⌘L. Browse your collections, search by palette or color name, find palettes containing a particular color, and load or duplicate palettes without having to locate their files manually.

The Library can display palettes as a list or as color tiles, and works with both macOS system color lists and folders you choose to watch.

Where palettes come from

Suisai finds palettes in two places:

• Watched folders: Locations you choose in Settings → Library. Suisai keeps a security-scoped bookmark for each location, allowing it to access the folder in later sessions without asking you to select it again. Locations appear under their folder names or custom nicknames.
• macOS system color lists: The color lists in ~/Library/Colors, including palettes installed into the macOS color picker. You can choose whether to include these in the Library.

Suisai reads the existing files where they are stored. You don’t have to import them into a separate collection.

Your palettes stay in their original locations

The Library is a view of your existing palette files, not a separate collection of imported copies.

When you open a palette from a file, edit it, and save it, Suisai normally writes the changes back to that file in its original format.

New palettes created in Suisai default to the macOS system Colors folder, but you can choose another location using Save As.

There are two exceptions worth understanding.

Photoshop ACO files can be opened and edited, but cannot be saved back in ACO format. Choose Save As to save the edited palette in a supported writable format.

Install in Color Picker… creates a CLR copy in ~/Library/Colors. The original file remains where it was, but the current palette window then follows the installed copy. Subsequent saves from that window update the CLR file rather than the original.

See Files and formats for more about saving and file types.

The Palette menu

You don’t need to open the full Library every time you want an existing palette.

Click the palette name in the header of a palette window to open a menu of available collections.

The menu includes:

• New Palette: Start a new, empty palette.
• System: Browse macOS color lists, including Apple, Crayons, System, Web Safe Colors, and palettes installed in the system Colors folder.
• Watched locations: Browse palettes grouped under their folder names or nicknames.
• Palette Library…: Open the full Library window.

Entries show each palette’s name and color count.

When a location contains more than twelve palettes, Suisai places them in a submenu to keep the main menu manageable.

You can also access these palettes from Palette → Load Palette in the macOS menu bar.

The Palette menu contains additional commands for creating palettes, exporting, rescanning folders, and managing colors. Save, Save As, and Install in Color Picker are available from the File menu.

Supported files

The Library recognizes these palette file formats:

Watched folders can also include CSS, SCSS, Sass, and Less stylesheets.

Including stylesheets

To include stylesheets from a watched folder, open Settings → Library and enable Include Stylesheets for that location by clicking the chevron next to the location name and choosing it from the options list.

Suisai can then index .css, .scss, .sass, and .less files alongside the other palettes in that folder.

Stylesheet colors become searchable by their variable names and values. For example, you can search for a particular brand color to find project stylesheets containing it.

Folders with this option enabled display a STYLESHEETS indicator. The setting is off by default.

Suisai applies a few rules to avoid filling the Library with unrelated project files:

• Watched folders are scanned one level deep.
• Minified files containing .min. in their names are skipped.
• A stylesheet must declare at least one named color variable, such as --brand-primary, $primary, or @primary, to appear as a palette.

Simply including a stylesheet in the Library doesn’t modify the file.

Stylesheets can be opened as editable palettes, but Suisai doesn’t write edited colors back into the original stylesheet. See Files and formats for the available saving and export options.

Finding a palette

The Library searches across your available locations, including palettes in collapsed sections.

You can search by name or by color.

Search by name

Enter part of a palette name or swatch name into the search field.

For example, searching for Sea of can find a palette containing a swatch named Sea of Stars, even when those words aren’t part of the palette’s filename.

Custom color names are searchable too.

The Library displays matching palettes as you type, regardless of whether their folders are currently expanded.

Search by color

Enter a HEX value, rgb() or hsl() color, paste a supported color value, or drop a swatch into the search field.

Suisai recognizes the input as a color and displays a color chip beside the search field.

You can then choose from three matching modes:

Results identify the matching swatch within each palette and indicate how closely it matches the search.

For Close, results show the perceptual color difference. For Same Hue, they show the hue difference in degrees.

This makes it possible to find palettes using similar shades, not just identical HEX values.

List and Tiles views

The Library has two ways to browse palettes.

List view

List displays palettes as horizontal strips of their colors, together with their names, color counts, and file types.

This view is useful when you want to compare palettes quickly or inspect their contents.

Tiles view

Tiles displays each palette as a compact grid of colors, making larger collections easier to browse visually.

Select a tile to view that palette’s details and available actions.

Both views use the same Library collection and search results. You can switch between them using the view controls in the footer.

Sorting palettes

Use the sort control in the Library header to arrange palettes by:

• Name
• Number of swatches
• File date

The adjacent arrow changes the sort direction.

For example, names can be sorted A–Z or Z–A, while swatch counts can be arranged from largest to smallest or the reverse.

Changing the sort field restores its default direction. Suisai remembers your sort preferences between launches.

Browsing large collections

When a folder contains more than eight palettes, the Library initially shows the first five with an N more… control.

Click it to expand the section and show the remaining palettes. Choose Show fewer to collapse it again.

Smaller sections containing eight or fewer palettes display their contents without this extra step.

Suisai remembers which sections you’ve expanded or collapsed.

Searches aren’t limited by collapsed sections. When you search, all matching palettes are shown.

Opening a palette

Click a palette row to expand its preview.

The expanded view displays the individual colors with their HEX values and names, along with information about the palette’s source file.

You can copy individual colors, use their context menus, or drag swatches into other Suisai windows and applications that accept color data.

A palette backed by a file can also be dragged as a file into Finder, another application, or a palette window.

Load into Builder

Choose Load into Builder to open the selected palette in the palette window you were most recently using.

You can also double-click a Library row to load it directly.

If the destination window contains unsaved changes, Suisai asks before replacing its contents.

Open in New Window

Right-click a palette and choose Open in New Window to load it into a separate palette window, leaving your existing work untouched.

Duplicate a palette

Choose Duplicate to create a separate copy.

Suisai proposes a name based on the original, such as Palette Name copy, and avoids overwriting an existing palette.

For a palette in a watched folder, the duplicate is created alongside the original. For a system palette, it is placed in the macOS Colors folder.

You can also right-click a palette and choose Reveal in Finder to locate its file.

Keyboard navigation

You can browse and manage the Library from the keyboard.

Press ⌘F from anywhere in Suisai to open the Library with its search field ready.

Press the Down Arrow from the search field to move into the results. Press Esc to clear the search.

See Keyboard shortcuts for the full list.

Moving palettes to the Trash

Palettes installed in the macOS Colors folder can be moved to the Trash from their context menu or expanded preview.

Suisai moves the file to the Trash rather than permanently deleting it. You can restore it using Put Back in the notification or Finder.

Built-in macOS palettes, including Apple, Crayons, System, and Web Safe Colors, cannot be removed this way.

Palettes in watched folders also cannot be moved to the Trash through the Library. Their original files remain under your control.

When a watched folder becomes unavailable

If a watched folder is on an unmounted drive or is otherwise unavailable, Suisai keeps its section visible and marks it OFFLINE.

Its palettes are dimmed and unavailable until the location can be accessed again. The Library’s available palette count reflects the files Suisai can currently reach.

Security-scoped bookmarks generally allow Suisai to follow a folder when it moves, with Settings displaying its updated location.

Reconnecting a folder

If a folder cannot be found or its permission needs renewing:

1. Open Settings → Library.
2. Find the affected watched location.
3. Open the menu beside it.
4. Choose Reconnect Folder if it’s offline, or Choose Folder Again… if it’s still available.
5. Select the folder to restore access.

The same menu provides options to rename a watched location, reveal it in Finder, or stop watching it.

Rescanning watched folders

Suisai can rescan watched folders when you request it or when the application launches.

Configure this behavior in Settings → Library, or use the rescan command when you want to update the Library after external file changes.

Scanning a watched folder only reads its contents. It doesn’t move, rename, delete, or rewrite the files.

Explicit actions such as opening and saving an editable palette or creating a duplicate are separate from this scanning process.