Flipnote Editor

What is Flipnote Editor?

Flipnote Editor is a browser-based Flipnote-style animation editor. It lets you draw 256×192 frame-by-frame animations with two ink layers, paper colours, DSi-style drawing tools, playback speed and looping, light-box/onion-skin helpers, music plus three sound-effect tracks, and WebM export.

Version: flipnote-editor v3.26.2

Canvas

Hold Ctrl (or Command) and scroll to zoom towards the pointer. A trackpad pinch also zooms. Scroll normally to pan when zoomed in; Shift+scroll moves sideways. You can also drag with the middle mouse button.

Click a shortcut, then press one key or a modifier and a key. Changes are saved on this device. The Advanced / alternate actions shortcut is held while choosing alternate tools and selection actions; its default is Shift.

How the tools work

• Audio buttons: while stopped, click an empty track to record it; click a filled track to preview it; click again while recording/previewing to stop. Hold Shift to switch the same buttons into import mode. Once a track has audio, its square erase-audio button appears without moving the meter: Music's is below its bar, while Sound 1–3 erase buttons sit just outside the sidebar to the right of their bars; click it to remove that track. Erasing Sound 1–3 also removes that sound's page triggers.
• Music during playback: the Music track starts with the Flipnote from the current page position, stops with playback, and restarts from the beginning when a looping Flipnote wraps to page 1. Changing Flipnote speed also changes the Music track's tempo and pitch so it keeps the same page/frame alignment instead of being cut short or leaving silence.
• Live sound effects: during playback, Sound 1–3 stay active. Click them or use their configured shortcuts to hear the sound immediately and attach it to the current page. On later playbacks, that page automatically fires its attached SE tracks. Sound 1–3 always play at their original recorded/imported speed and pitch, even when Flipnote speed changes; page trigger placement does not change.
• Audio importing: hold Advanced / alternate actions (Shift by default) and click Music/Sound 1–3 to choose an MP3 or WAV from your device. The audio trimmer lets you choose a clip and preview it. For Music, Automatically add frames to match this music appends blank pages at the current speed, up to 999 pages. Each Sound track is limited to 2 seconds.
• Tool picker: clicking Draw, Paint, Fill, or Erase immediately switches to that family's last chosen subtool and opens its submenu. After choosing a tool, its selected icon stays at the left of the picker. Click that retained icon to reopen the same family quickly. The Cycle drawing tools shortcut switches between the last-used Draw, Paint, Fill, and Erase tools without losing each family's slot or retained Advanced choice.
• Advanced tools: hold Advanced / alternate actions (Shift by default) before choosing a Draw, Paint, or Erase slot. Fill has no Advanced bank.
• Custom Paint: when the custom Paint tool is selected, use Edit Pattern to draw an 8×8 motif; click or drag across cells, then Save Pattern.
• Layers & colour: click a layer row to make it active. Open its colour choices to use black, red, or blue ink independently per layer, or use the colour shortcut to cycle them. Clear active layer erases only the active layer on the current page. A configured nudge shortcut moves the whole active layer by exactly 1 pixel when there is no selection.
• Selection & movement: on tab 3, Select draws a freehand selection; hold Advanced / alternate actions (Shift by default) while drawing to make a rectangle. Transform starts a rectangular selection or turns an existing freehand selection into its bounding rectangle. Drag its eight square handles to resize the selected artwork or the round handle above it to rotate. Hold the alternate-action key while dragging inside a selection to move its pixels. Copy changes to Cut while it is held, and Paste uses the copied selection shape. With a selection active, the configured nudge shortcuts move only that selected area by exactly 1 pixel. Invert swaps ink and erased pixels inside the selection on the active layer; hold the alternate-action key while clicking Invert to swap the two layers' ink only inside the selected area.
• Resize / Flip / Rotate: these act only on the current layer. With a selection they transform only that selected area; without one they transform the whole active layer. Resize shrinks to 50%, or enlarges to 200% while the alternate-action key is held. Flip is horizontal, or vertical with that key. Rotate is clockwise, or anticlockwise with that key.
• Paper: the Paper button toggles white/black paper; monochrome ink is interpreted against the chosen paper colour.
• Light-box: toggle it to see previous page artwork while drawing the current page.
• Clone: when Clone is enabled, inserting a page or advancing beyond the final page copies the current page's drawing and colours. With Clone off, a new page is blank but inherits the previous page's paper colour.
• Timeline: click a thumbnail to jump directly to that page. During playback the filmstrip automatically follows the current page so the active thumbnail stays in view.
• Page Tools: use the small Open Page Tools button beneath the timeline to reveal Remove Page, Insert Page, Copy Page, and Paste Page. Copy Page stores both drawing layers; Paste Page replaces both layers on the destination page with the copied page artwork. The toggle moves to the bottom of the open tray and changes to Close Page Tools.
• Playback: use the configured Play / pause shortcut from anywhere in the editor except a text-entry field. Click or drag across the speed graphic to choose one of the eight Flipnote speed levels. Editing controls lock while the animation is running, but Sound 1–3 remain live for performance.
• Import image: on tab 4, use Import Image to open the three-step importer. Step 1 accepts drag-and-drop, Upload, or clipboard paste (⌘V on Apple platforms, Ctrl+V elsewhere); Step 2 lets you crop the source; Step 3 can convert the crop into one ink colour on one layer, or quantize it into two chosen ink colours across both layers on the same page, with fit/fill/stretch/original sizing, alignment, threshold/dithering, invert, smoothing, and merge/replace options.
• Loop: toggle the loop button beside the speed control before playback starts.
• Title: click the title on tab 5 to edit it, then press Enter or click elsewhere to finish.