How to Draw on TradingView (Step by Step + Shortcuts)

TradingView‘s drawing toolbar is the most underused weapon on the platform. Most traders click on the trendline tool, draw a line, and never touch the other 50+ tools, the magnet mode, or the templates that turn a clean chart into a real trade plan. This guide walks through every drawing tool, the keyboard shortcuts that double your speed, and the workflow tweaks that keep your charts from turning into spaghetti.

Getting Started with Drawing Tools

Locating the Drawing Tools

All of TradingView’s drawing tools live on the left panel of the chart, grouped into seven categories: cursors, lines, Fibs, shapes, annotations, patterns, and prediction. Each category expands into a submenu when you hover or long-click on any tool icon in that group.

Popular Drawing Tools

• Cursor: cross, dot, arrow, eraser
• Trend Line tools: trend line, horizontal line/ray
• Gann and Fibonacci tools: Fib retracement, trend-based Fib extension, pitchfork
• Geometric shapes: path, highlighter, brush, rectangle
• Annotation tools: text, callout, price label, price note, arrow marker
• Patterns: head and shoulders, Elliott wave
• Prediction and measurement tools: long, short, price, and date range
• Icons: emoji range for quick chart marking

How to Use Drawing Tools

Step-by-Step Instructions

Drawing tools in TradingView are used for chart annotation and analysis. Here is the core workflow:

• Open a TradingView chart.
• Select the tool you want from the left-side drawing panel. Long-click any tool icon to see the full submenu for that category.
• Click the first anchor point on the chart where you want the drawing to begin. The price level highlights on the Y-axis.
• Click the second anchor point to set the drawing. Most tools place on a double-click; the brush and freehand tools use click-hold-drag.
• Hold Shift while placing the second anchor to lock trendlines horizontal, vertical, or to 45-degree increments.

Drawing in Full Screen Mode

When you enter full-screen mode the main drawing toolbar hides. Use the favorites toolbar, a floating on-chart toolbar of your pinned tools, to keep working without exiting full screen. Add tools to favorites by right-clicking any tool in the left panel and selecting “Add to favorites.”

Customizing Drawing Tools

TradingView lets you customize every drawing’s color, thickness, line style, and label display. Two ways to access settings:

• Floating panel: appears automatically when a drawing is selected. Change color, thickness, and style in one click.
• Custom window: click the gear icon in the floating panel, or right-click the drawing and choose “Settings.” This opens a full settings dialog with every available option including price labels, line extension, and ray direction.

Creating a Favorites Toolbar

The favorites toolbar is a floating toolbar that sits on the chart surface so your most-used tools are one click away regardless of the chart mode. To add a tool, right-click any tool in the drawing panel and choose “Add to favorites.” To reposition the toolbar, click and hold the six-dot drag handle on the left edge of the toolbar.

Drawing a Path in TradingView

The Path tool creates a chain of connected line segments ending with an arrow, useful for marking wave sequences and multi-leg trend moves. Here is how to use it:

• Open the Geometric Shapes group and select Path.
• Click the starting point on the chart.
• Click each subsequent point to add a segment. The segments connect automatically.
• Double-click the final point to close the path.
• The arrowhead can appear at the start, end, or both. Toggle this in the tool settings or the floating toolbar.

Drawing Freehand on TradingView

To draw freehand, use the Brush tool under the Geometric Shapes category. Open the group, select Brush, then click and hold while dragging to draw. Release to finish. The Brush respects magnet mode settings, so turn strong magnet off when you want organic freehand lines that do not snap to OHLC values.

Writing on TradingView

To add text annotations, use the Text tool under Annotation Tools. Select the tool, click where you want to place the text, type, then press Enter or click outside the text box to finish. The Callout tool works the same way but adds an arrow pointing to a specific price level on the chart.

Drawing Lines in the TradingView App

The mobile TradingView app supports a subset of drawing tools: trendlines, horizontal lines, Fib retracement, rectangles, and text. To use them:

• Open a chart on the TradingView app.
• Tap the pencil icon to open the drawing menu.
• Select the tool, then tap each anchor point in sequence. On mobile you tap rather than click-hold-drag for most tools.
• The favorites toolbar from desktop is not available on mobile, so access tools from the drawing menu each time.

Drawing Templates: Save Your Styles Once, Reuse Forever

Every drawing tool in TradingView remembers the last style you used, but templates take it further. Open any drawing’s settings, click the Template menu at the top, and save the current style under a name. The next time you grab that tool, pick the saved template from the dropdown and the trendline (or rectangle, or Fib) appears with your color, thickness, line style, font, and price labels already configured. Most traders skip this and re-style every drawing by hand for years. Save the five templates you use most: a primary support/resistance line, a confirmation trendline, a Fib for retracements, a Fib for extensions, and a rectangle for supply/demand zones. You will save hours every month.

Magnet Mode and Snap to Price

Magnet mode is a chart-level setting that snaps your drawings to specific OHLC values on each candle. Click the magnet icon at the top of the drawing toolbar to open three options: weak magnet (snaps if you are within a few pixels), strong magnet (always snaps), and off. Strong magnet is the right default for support and resistance work because it forces every line to land on a real wick or close, not a pixel-rounded estimate. The drawback: pixel-perfect freehand sketches are impossible with strong magnet on, so toggle it off when you draw freehand or annotate text.

Sync Drawings Across Charts and Symbols

By default, a trendline you draw on AAPL stays on AAPL. Open MSFT in the same window and the trendline is gone. To change this, right-click on any drawing, choose the “Lock and Hide” submenu, and look for “Sync drawings to all symbols,” or open Settings > Symbol > Sync Drawings. With sync on, every drawing follows the chart anywhere. This is great for index analysis (a Fib drawn on SPY stays when you flip to QQQ) and a problem for symbol-specific levels (your AAPL trendline now clutters every other ticker). Pick the mode that matches how you trade: indexers go on, single-stock traders go off, multi-chart layout users use the “Sync drawings to charts in this layout” middle option.

Keyboard Shortcuts That Double Your Drawing Speed

TradingView has a full set of TradingView keyboard shortcuts worth learning, and the drawing-specific ones are especially useful. Hold Shift while drawing a trendline to lock it horizontal, vertical, or to 45-degree increments. Hold Ctrl (Windows) or Cmd (Mac) while clicking a drawing to select multiple at once for batch deletion or color changes. Press Esc to cancel a half-drawn object. Press Backspace or Delete with a drawing selected to remove it. Use Ctrl/Cmd + Z to undo the last drawing action. The Object Tree, the icon that looks like stacked horizontal lines on the right side panel, lists every drawing on the chart so you can hide, lock, or delete by name without hunting on the chart itself.

Replay Tool and Drawings: Backtest Your Lines

The Replay tool lets you scroll the chart back in time bar by bar, and any drawing you place stays anchored to its original timestamp. The combination is one of TradingView’s strongest study features: pick a date six months ago, draw the trendline you would have drawn at the time, then step the chart forward bar by bar to see whether the trendline held. Open Replay from the top toolbar, click “Select bar” to set the start date, then use the play controls to step forward. Drawings made during replay are saved on the chart, which is great for a permanent study record but adds clutter if you replay every day. Periodically clean the chart with the Object Tree.

How to Draw on TradingView: Bottom Line

TradingView’s drawing tools are powerful and versatile. The traders who get the most out of them are not the ones who know every tool; they are the ones who have set up templates for their five most-used drawings, enabled magnet mode for their support/resistance work, and learned the keyboard shortcuts that cut annotation time in half. Start there, then explore the more advanced features like sync across charts and the Replay backtest workflow. For a deeper look at the full platform, the TradingView tutorials hub covers every major feature with step-by-step walkthroughs.

Before You Go

If you want to keep learning about TradingView and trading tools, check out these posts:

How to Get a TradingView Free Trial

The Best TradingView Indicators

FAQ

How do I draw a trendline on TradingView?

Click the trendline icon in the left-side drawing toolbar (or press Alt + T on most layouts), click the first anchor point on a wick or close, then click the second anchor to set the line. Hold Shift while you click the second anchor to lock the line horizontal, vertical, or to a 45-degree slope.

How do I draw on the TradingView mobile app?

Tap the chart to bring up the toolbar, then tap the pencil icon to open the drawing menu. The mobile app supports a smaller subset of tools (trendlines, horizontal lines, Fib retracement, rectangles, text), and you draw by tapping each anchor point rather than click-hold-drag. The favorites toolbar from the desktop app is not available on mobile.

Can I save my drawing styles on TradingView?

Yes. Open any drawing’s settings, click the Template menu at the top of the settings window, and save the current style under a name. Future drawings of that tool can be styled in one click by picking the template from the dropdown.

How do I delete all drawings on a TradingView chart?

Right-click anywhere on the chart, choose “Object Tree” or “Remove drawings” to clear every drawing at once. Use Object Tree if you want to delete some but not others; Remove drawings is the nuclear option.

Why are my drawings showing up on other symbols?

The “Sync drawings to all symbols” setting is on. Right-click any drawing, find the sync option (or open chart Settings > Symbol > Sync Drawings), and switch to “off” or to “Sync drawings to charts in this layout” depending on how you want the lines to follow you.

Are TradingView’s drawing tools free?

Yes. Every drawing tool is available on the free TradingView plan. The paid plans add multi-monitor sync, more saved layouts, and the ability to keep more drawings on a single chart, but the toolset itself is identical. See the full TradingView pricing guide for a breakdown of what each plan includes.