Boardfish

Boardfish is a fast, local-first infinite canvas for visual research, moodboards, image references, and text snippets.

It is built for people who collect lots of visual material and want a lightweight place to arrange, inspect, save, and export without hassle.

Download

Grab the latest Windows and macOS installers from the Releases page.

• Windows — download the .exe, run the installer
• macOS — download the .dmg, drag Boardfish to Applications

macOS: If you see "damaged and can't be opened", run this in Terminal after dragging to Applications:

xattr -cr /Applications/Boardfish.app

Why Boardfish?

• Local-first: your boards stay on your machine
• Fast with image-heavy boards: built for large collections of images and text
• Lossless image workflow: import, transform, copy, and export without degrading originals
• No account required: no workspaces, subscriptions, sync setup, or team features to get through
• Portable projects: save everything into a local .bf file
• Simple extraction: export selected images, all images, or all text when you need the raw material back

Boardfish is not a team whiteboard. It is a private, lightweight canvas for collecting and arranging visual material quickly.

Who It's For

• Artists and illustrators building reference boards
• Designers collecting visual inspiration
• Students organizing screenshots, formulas, and notes
• Writers, game developers, and worldbuilders gathering research
• Anyone who wants a quiet local canvas instead of a browser-based whiteboard

Keyboard Shortcuts

Action	Mac	Windows
New board	Cmd+N	Ctrl+N
Open board	Cmd+O	Ctrl+O
Save	Cmd+S	Ctrl+S
Save As	Cmd+Shift+S	Ctrl+Shift+S
Select all objects	Cmd+A	Ctrl+A
Copy	Cmd+C	Ctrl+C
Cut	Cmd+X	Ctrl+X
Paste	Cmd+V	Ctrl+V
Duplicate selected	Cmd+D	Ctrl+D
Undo	Cmd+Z	Ctrl+Z
Redo	Cmd+Shift+Z	Ctrl+Shift+Z / Ctrl+Y
Delete selected	Backspace / Delete	Backspace / Delete
Pan canvas	Space + drag	Space + drag
Deselect / exit edit / close menus	Esc	Esc
Quit / close	Cmd+Q / Cmd+W	Ctrl+Q / Ctrl+W

Building from Source

Prerequisites: Node.js 18+ and Rust

git clone https://github.com/Indominater/Boardfish.git
cd Boardfish
npm install
npm run tauri dev

To build a release installer:

npm run tauri build

License

Boardfish is source-available under the Boardfish Source-Available License.

The source code is available for personal, educational, research, evaluation, and other non-commercial use. Commercial use, resale, redistribution as part of a paid product or service, and business/studio/enterprise use require prior written permission.