Penpot 2.13. All the small things 
The first release of the year is here, and it sets the tone for what’s coming next.
Penpot 2.13 marks the beginning of an exciting year ahead. We’re focused on taking the platform to a whole new level: better performance, stronger design system foundations, long-requested features, and new capabilities that unlock smoother workflows for teams.
This release brings two highly requested highlights from the community, along with solid improvements under the hood to keep everything fast, stable, and predictable.
Let’s take a look.
The Trash: deleted doesn’t mean gone anymore
Deleting a file or a project in Penpot is no longer a point of no return.
With The Trash, we’re introducing a dedicated space in the dashboard where deleted files and projects live before being permanently removed.
From here, you can:
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Recover content deleted by mistake
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Permanently clean things up when you’re sure you no longer need them
The Trash works for both files and projects, and items are automatically removed after a period of time, depending on your Penpot plan.
Highly requested, long overdue, and now officially here.
Shadow tokens: reusable shadows, at last
Design systems just got a big upgrade.
With Shadow tokens, we’re introducing our second composite token, right after Typography tokens. This is a major step forward in making design systems in Penpot more powerful and scalable.
Until now, shadows couldn’t be defined as reusable styles in the same way colors could before color tokens existed. Shadow tokens change that.
You can now:
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Create reusable, consistent shadows
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Define shadows with one or multiple layers
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Use both Drop Shadow and Inner Shadow
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Reference existing tokens or use custom values
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Even reference other shadow tokens
This unlocks an entirely new level of consistency and flexibility for teams working with complex visual systems.
Community contributions
Community contributions continue to play a key role in making Penpot more robust and enjoyable to use. For this release, we want to give special thanks to @dfelinto for two thoughtful contributions that improve reliability and usability in everyday workflows.
More reliable masks when updating components
When working with components that include masked elements, updating the component could sometimes lead to unexpected mask behaviour or visual inconsistencies. This was especially noticeable in more complex components or when masks were deeply nested.
This contribution addresses those issues by ensuring that masks remain stable and correctly applied when a component is updated. As a result, designers can iterate on components with greater confidence, without worrying about masks breaking or needing manual fixes after updates.
A smoother token import experience
Importing design tokens is a critical step when setting up or maintaining a design system. Previously, the default import behavior didn’t always match the most common token formats, which could add unnecessary friction during setup.
With this contribution, Single JSON value is now the default option when importing tokens. This makes the import flow more intuitive, reduces the number of decisions users need to make upfront, and aligns better with how many teams structure their token files.
These contributions reflect real-world usage and attention to detail, and they help make Penpot more predictable and efficient for teams building and scaling design systems. Thank you for helping improve Penpot 
More coming soon
Want to explore every fix, improvement, and small detail included in this release? You can check out the full Penpot changelog for a complete breakdown.
This is just the first release of the year, and we’re only getting started. Performance improvements (the New Render Engine Beta Test is almost finished 
), deeper design system capabilities, and long-awaited features (hello, MCP server) are already on the way.
Stay tuned — it’s going to be a big year for Penpot
