How to choose a drawing app for a toddler: a checklist

The right drawing app for a toddler is the one that gets out of the way. A two-year-old needs a few colours, a canvas and a way to make marks. Everything else an app adds (stickers, stamps, sound effects, rewards, ads) takes attention away from the drawing, and most of it is there for the app’s benefit, not the child’s. Here’s a checklist to run any kids’ drawing app through before it reaches your child.

1. Does it have ads?

Start here, because it decides everything else. A toddler cannot tell an ad from the app. An ad-funded drawing app will, by design, interrupt the drawing, and ads in kids’ apps routinely lead to other apps, the App Store, or a web page.

How to check: read the App Store listing. “Contains ads” or “In-app purchases” with a long list of coin packs are the tell. Apple’s privacy “nutrition label” on the listing also tells you whether the app tracks you.

Ad-free apps are usually paid, or free with one optional upgrade. Both are fine. “Free” with a hundred tiny purchases usually isn’t.

2. Does it have reward loops?

Stars for every drawing. Streaks. A chest that unlocks after five pictures. Confetti when a page is “complete.” These are retention mechanics borrowed from games, and they teach a toddler to draw for the animation rather than for the drawing.

How to check: watch the app for five minutes. If something celebrates, unlocks or counts up without your child asking for it, that’s a reward loop.

3. Are there stickers and stamps?

Tapping to drop a pre-drawn unicorn onto the canvas is not drawing. It’s also irresistible, so once a toddler finds the sticker tray they tend to stop using the pen. Colouring-in pages have a milder version of the same problem: the picture is already made.

A little of this is fine for a four-year-old who already draws. For a two-year-old, an app with no stickers at all is the safer pick.

4. How many tools are there?

Count the buttons on the drawing screen. A toddler app needs roughly: some colours, a way to change thickness, undo or clear, and a way out. That’s it. Fifty brushes, layers, fill buckets, text, shapes and glitter are adult features. Each one is something a toddler will tap, get confused by, or get stuck in.

Fewer tools also means fewer decisions, and fewer decisions means more drawing.

5. Is there a child-lock?

Toddlers tap everything, fast. If the menu, the gallery or the settings open with a single tap, your child will be out of the canvas in under a minute, and quite possibly in your iPad’s Settings. Look for:

• A long-press to leave the canvas (two or three seconds is typical)
• A parent gate (an arithmetic question, or a hold) before sharing, buying or opening a link
• No links to other apps, social media or a website inside the child-facing screens

Whatever app you choose, set up Guided Access on the iPad (Settings → Accessibility → Guided Access). It locks the device to one app and is the single best child-lock available.

6. Does it work offline?

The places a toddler most needs a drawing app (planes, cars, waiting rooms) are the places with no connection. Put the iPad in airplane mode and open the app. If it needs to “load” anything, it isn’t a travel app.

Offline also doubles as a privacy check: an app that doesn’t need the network can’t be sending much anywhere.

7. What does it collect?

A drawing app for two-year-olds has no reason to know who the child is. Red flags:

• Asking for an email, a name or a birthday to start
• Creating an account or “profile”
• A privacy policy that mentions advertising partners, analytics or “third parties”
• Cloud sync as the only way to save

Green flags: drawings saved on the device, no account, a short privacy policy that says what it doesn’t do. Apple’s privacy label on the listing shows “Data Not Collected” for apps in that category.

8. Does it have a dark canvas?

This one is a preference, but a strong one. A white canvas is bright, especially in a dim room or a car at night. A black canvas keeps the light down, and colours look like neon on it, which toddlers love. If you’ll use the app at bedtime or on night drives, make dark mode a requirement. There’s more on why in this article.

9. Is it quiet?

Sound effects on every tap train a child to tap for the sound. Background music is just noise in a car. The right amount of audio in a toddler drawing app is none, or at least a mute that stays muted.

10. Can you get the drawings out?

The drawing matters more when it can leave the iPad: saved to Photos, sent to a grandparent, printed for the fridge. Check that sharing exists, and that it sits behind a parent gate so your child can’t post the drawing anywhere on their own.

The checklist in one place

• No ads, and a business model you understand
• No reward loops, confetti or unlockables
• No stickers or stamps (or very few)
• A handful of tools, not a studio
• A child-lock on the way out, and a parent gate on sharing and buying
• Works fully offline
• No account, no tracking, drawings stored on the device
• A dark canvas option
• Quiet by default
• A way to save and share, gated for parents

We make an app that was designed against this list, because we couldn’t find one that passed it. Dabble is a free iPad drawing app for ages two to four with twelve markers, a thickness slider, a light and a dark canvas, a two-second hold to leave, and nothing else. It’s one option; the list works for any of them.