How to choose a coloring app for a toddler or preschooler.

Most coloring apps are built for older children or adults, with fine detail, adverts and a lot of buttons. A three-year-old needs something different. Here are eight things to check on an app's Google Play page before you hand it over, and how to check each one in under a minute.

By the Modoware team, who make the Color Magic coloring app. We've kept the checklist general, so it works for any app, including ours.

The short version

• Big shapes and a tap-to-fill mode, so a small finger can finish a page
• No "Contains ads" label on the Play listing
• Purchases, if any, behind a question only an adult can answer
• "No data collected" in the Data safety section
• Works offline, for the car or a plane
• Saves unfinished pictures
• A small number of choices at a time
• Ideally, Google Play's Teacher Approved badge

1. Shapes a small finger can actually fill

Between three and five, children tap far more accurately than they trace. An app where one tap fills a whole shape lets them finish a picture. An app that only has a freehand brush usually ends in a scribbled page and a frustrated child. Look at the screenshots: outlines should be thick and the areas large. A page with dozens of tiny regions is made for older children, however cute the drawing is.

2. No adverts

Every Google Play listing shows "Contains ads" under the install button if the app shows adverts. For young children, look for apps without that label. An advert in a toddler's app is one tap away from leaving it.

3. Purchases a child can't make by accident

"In-app purchases" on a listing isn't a bad sign by itself. Many good apps are free to try, with one payment to unlock the rest. What matters is how the app sells it: one clear price, no subscription, and a parent check (a sum or a question a pre-reader can't answer) before the purchase screen. Be wary of coins, lives, timers and repeated pop-ups.

4. What it collects

Scroll to "Data safety" on the Play listing. The best answer for a toddler's app is "No data collected" and "No data shared with third parties". If an app collects location, device IDs or "app activity", ask yourself why a coloring book would need them.

5. Works offline

A coloring app is most useful where there's no Wi-Fi: in the car, on a plane, in a waiting room. Try it in flight mode before a journey. If it won't open, or won't show pages, offline, it isn't the app for a trip.

6. Keeps their work

Young children rarely finish in one sitting. An app that saves a half-coloured picture exactly as they left it means they can come back to it tomorrow, and they get to see a gallery of their own work grow.

7. Fewer choices on screen

A wall of a hundred pictures can be paralysing at this age, and it invites endless scrolling instead of colouring. Apps that show a few pages at a time, or open new pages as old ones are finished, tend to hold attention better.

8. The Teacher Approved badge

Teacher Approved is a Google Play programme. Teachers and specialists review children's apps against criteria such as age-appropriateness, design quality, and how enriching and enjoyable they are. Approved apps show the badge on their listing and can appear in Play's Kids section. It isn't a guarantee, but it's a useful shortlist.

Where Color Magic fits

We built Color Magic around this list, so this is our own app and you should weigh our view accordingly. It has 100 hand-drawn pages with big outlines for ages 3–6, and one tap fills a shape. Its brush can't cross a line. There are no adverts, nothing is collected, and it works fully offline. Pages open two at a time, and every picture is saved. The first 15 pages are free, and a single payment behind a parent check unlocks the rest. It is Teacher Approved on Google Play and runs on Android phones and tablets. There is no iPhone version yet.

Prefer paper? We also have 15 free printable colouring pages with the same big outlines.

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