Excalidraw download: there is no installer — and you don't need one

Short answer

There is no official Excalidraw download. The Excalidraw team does not ship an installer for Windows, macOS, Linux or Android, and any .exe or .apk offered elsewhere is not from them. What you actually want exists though: install Excalidraw from your browser in one click and you get a real application window, a dock or taskbar icon, and full offline use — no download, no account.

Why there is no installer

Excalidraw is built as a web application, and its team chose not to maintain separate desktop builds. That is a deliberate trade-off: one codebase, instant updates, nothing to reinstall. The cost is that people looking for a download button do not find one and assume the app is unavailable.

Be careful with what you do find. Sites offering an Excalidraw .exe or .apk are repackaging it at best. Since the real thing is free and installs from the official site in seconds, there is no reason to take that risk.

Mentioned here: ✏️ Excalidraw, ✏️ Penpot, 🖼️ Photopea

The ten-second install, per platform

Windows and Linux, Chrome or Edge: open excalidraw.com, click the install icon in the address bar, confirm. It appears in your Start menu or application launcher.

macOS, Chrome or Edge: same icon in the address bar. On Safari 17 and later, File → Add to Dock.

Android: Chrome shows an install banner, or use the ⋮ menu → Add to Home screen. iOS and iPadOS: Share → Add to Home Screen, using Safari.

In each case you end up with an icon, a standalone window with no browser interface, and an app that opens offline.

What you get versus a native app

You get the offline use, the dedicated window, the launcher icon, and local file access for import and export. Updates arrive silently, so you are never on an old version.

What you do not get is deep operating-system integration — no file-type association that opens .excalidraw files by double-click on every platform, and no presence in the Microsoft Store or Mac App Store. For a whiteboard, that gap is rarely felt.