Spritesheet vs ShoeBox
ShoeBox is a free desktop sprite tool that needs Adobe AIR, a runtime Adobe handed off at the end of 2020. Spritesheet Generator does the same core job in a browser tab, with nothing to install first.
A modern replacement for a discontinued runtime
ShoeBox was a genuinely good free sprite tool, and parts of it still have no obvious replacement. The problem is getting to it: Adobe AIR is a third-party runtime you install before you have packed anything, and on recent macOS that install is a coin flip. This runs in a browser you already have open, and it still ships releases.
The Adobe AIR situation, stated accurately
Adobe ended its own support for Adobe AIR on 31 December 2020 and handed the runtime to HARMAN, which still maintains and distributes it. So AIR is not dead, and ShoeBox is not guaranteed to fail to launch. Comparison pages that claim otherwise are overstating it.
What is true is the friction. Running ShoeBox in 2026 means downloading a runtime from a third party, getting it past whatever your operating system thinks of an unsigned or unfamiliar installer, and doing all of that before you have packed anything. On macOS in particular, the notarisation and architecture story for AIR builds has been rough for years, and reports of it failing to install cleanly are common enough to be the expected outcome rather than bad luck.
ShoeBox itself has been effectively frozen for years. It works or it does not, and if it does not, nobody is going to fix it.
What ShoeBox was actually good at
Worth naming, because the feature list undersells it. ShoeBox was a grab bag of image utilities that happened to include a sprite packer, and some of those utilities were genuinely unusual.
Where ShoeBox still wins
- Bitmap font generation from a TTF, and font extraction back out of an image, had few free alternatives.
- Extract Sprites could find and cut individual sprites out of a messy sheet where the frames were not on any grid, using connected-pixel detection rather than a cell size.
- There were also polygon and collision-outline helpers.
The splitter here does have an auto-detect mode that boxes islands of non-transparent pixels, so irregular sheets with no grid are covered. Bitmap font generation and font extraction are not, and if those are what brought you to ShoeBox then this is not a drop-in replacement.
What the browser version does instead
For the core loop, pack frames into a sheet and get usable data out, the browser is simply a better delivery mechanism. Nothing to install, nothing to keep updated, and it works identically on Windows, macOS, Linux, and a Chromebook. Your images never leave the tab, which is a stronger privacy position than a desktop tool with network access.
On top of the packer there is an animation preview with an fps control, a pixel editor for fixing a frame in place, recolour and palette-swap tools, and engine-specific exports: a JSON atlas for Phaser and PixiJS, a SpriteFrames .tres for Godot 4, a .tsj tileset for Tiled, and Sparrow XML. ShoeBox predates most of those formats.
Pick ShoeBox when
You need bitmap font generation, font extraction, or sprite detection on an irregular sheet with no grid. Those are the tools nothing here replicates, and they are worth the AIR install if you need them.
Pick Spritesheet Generator when
You want to pack, split, preview, and export sheets without installing a runtime first, and you want output formats that engines released after 2015 can read.
| Feature | UsUs | ShoeBox |
|---|---|---|
| Free to use | ||
| Works in the browser ShoeBox needs the Adobe AIR runtime installed first | ||
| Actively maintained ShoeBox has not been updated in years | ||
| Drag & drop sprite upload | ||
| Auto grid layout | ||
| PNG export | ||
| JSON atlas export | ||
| GIF export | ||
| Engine-specific formats Unity, Godot, Phaser, Tiled | ||
| Built-in pixel art editor | ||
| Spritesheet splitting | ||
| Animation preview | ||
| Multi-layer support | ||
| Bitmap font creation | ||
| Sprite detection on irregular sheets Both box sprites by connected pixels, no grid needed | ||
| Works on modern macOS / Linux AIR installs are unreliable on recent macOS | ||
| No account required |
No runtime to install
No Adobe AIR download, no unsigned installer to argue with. It runs in the browser you already have open.
Still shipping
Releases land roughly monthly and the changelog is public. ShoeBox has been frozen for years.
Cross-platform by default
Windows, macOS, Linux, Chromebook. Anything with a browser. Getting AIR onto recent macOS is the part that stops people.
Built-in editor & preview
Edit sprites, play the loop, change the layout, all without leaving the tab or exporting first.
From ShoeBox to a packed sheet
- 1
Take the sheet, not the Shoebox project
Shoebox writes a PNG plus whatever text output its template produced. Bring the PNG here and keep the old data file only as a reference for the frame layout.
- 2
Split it back into frames
Use grid mode if the sheet is uniform, auto-detect for a hand-arranged one, or attach the atlas file and let the exact rectangles be read out of it.
- 3
Fix what the old pack got wrong
Reorder frames, drop duplicates, trim margins, and set a consistent alignment inside the cell. This is the pass that fixes an animation that always wobbled.
- 4
Repack and export current formats
Write a Godot SpriteFrames resource, a TexturePacker JSON atlas, a Tiled tileset, or a plain grid PNG, without editing a template by hand.
- 5
Skip the runtime
No Adobe AIR install, no desktop dependency. The same job now happens in a browser tab, which also means it works on a machine you do not administer.
More questions? See the full FAQ.
Skip the runtime install
Same job, one browser tab, nothing to download first.