This Paint editor runs inside your web browser, so saving and opening work a little differently from a program installed on your computer. Every save is a PNG file, and opening reads an image file you pick from your computer. It also keeps a copy of your picture in browser storage, covered below. Saving downloads the file through your browser, and the stored copy stays in this browser.
Download your picture with Save or Save As
Both commands do exactly the same thing in this editor, so use whichever you remember.
- Open the File menu at the top of the window.
- Choose Save, or press Ctrl+S. Save As (Ctrl+Shift+S) gives the same result.
- Wait for your browser to download the file. Where it ends up depends on the download settings in your browser, so look in its downloads list if you can't find it.
Know what file name and format you'll get
Every save produces a PNG file. No JPEG or other format is on offer. The file takes the name of the picture you're working on, with its image extension swapped for .png, so a picture opened as photo.jpg downloads as photo.png. A brand-new picture has no file name yet and borrows the page title instead, with .png on the end; your browser may change a few characters in it. When you save, any selection is first set down onto the picture, so it appears in the file. The PNG keeps any transparent areas of the picture, but a picture set to Opaque, the default, has none; to get see-through areas, choose Transparent in Image > Attributes... (Ctrl+E). The Set As Wallpaper (Tiled) and Set As Wallpaper (Centered) commands in the File menu also download a PNG, named after your file with wallpaper added, rather than changing your device's background.
Answer the Save changes question before starting over
When you choose New (Ctrl+N) or open another picture while the current one has changes that haven't been saved, Paint stops and asks whether to save changes to the picture by name. You get three buttons:
- Save downloads the current picture first, then carries on.
- Discard drops the changes and carries on.
- Cancel stops and leaves your current picture open.
- In Chrome this question can still appear right after a save, because Chrome never tells Paint that the download finished.
Open an image file from your computer
The file replaces the picture on screen, and the canvas changes to the size of the image. Colors and zoom go back to their starting settings, and Paint works out from the image whether it has transparent parts. With several files selected, Paint uses the first image and shows an error if there is none. You can also skip the menu and drag an image file from your computer onto the page, which opens it the same way.
- Choose File > Open, or press Ctrl+O.
- Choose the image you want in the window that opens.
Bring in a picture from a web address
Your browser fetches the image directly, so it only works when the site hosting the picture allows other sites to load it (a setting called cross-origin access, or CORS). When the host blocks it, an Error window reports that the image failed to load and explains the CORS limit.
- Choose File > Load From URL.
- Paste the image's web address into the URL box of the Load from URL window.
- Click Load, or Cancel to close the window without loading anything.
Save or insert just part of a picture
Two commands in the Edit menu move pieces of a picture in and out as files:
- Edit > Copy To... downloads the current selection on its own, as a file named selection.png.
- Edit > Paste From... lets you pick an image file and adds it to the picture as a selection, placed at the top-left.
- Ctrl+V does the same with an image already on your clipboard.
- When the incoming image is bigger than your picture, Paint asks whether to Enlarge the picture to fit, Crop the pasted image, or Cancel.
Get back work the browser kept for you
As you make changes, Paint stores a PNG copy of the picture in your browser's own storage. The address in the address bar gains an id starting with #local: that points to this copy. Reload the page, or come back to that same address later, and the picture reappears. A picture restored this way counts as unsaved, because it has not been downloaded as a file yet; use Save if you want a copy on your computer.
Review and clear stored pictures in Manage Storage
Removing a stored picture has no effect on files you already downloaded with Save. When nothing is left in storage, the window shows a short all-clear message instead of a list. If the browser runs out of room for stored pictures, a Storage Error window appears; it offers View and manage storage and Ignore.
- Choose File > Manage Storage. A window lists every picture the browser is keeping, each with a small thumbnail.
- Click a row's Open link to view that picture in a new tab, or its Remove button to delete it from browser storage.
- Click Close when you're done.