Free for Windows · Beta

StitchLab Design Explorer

Every embroidery design on your computer, at a glance. Design Explorer finds the designs in your folders, USB sticks and network drives and shows them as pictures, so you can stop opening files one by one to see what's in them.

Download for Windows What it does on your computer

No account needed. It reads only the places you add and sends nothing anywhere.

Design Explorer's window: places on the left, a grid of design pictures in the middle, the chosen design's details on the right

Your places on the left, every design as a picture, the details of the one you pick.

What it does

Finds your designs wherever they are

Add folders, USB sticks and network drives. Design Explorer looks through them, sub-folders too, and keeps the pictures so the next look is instant.

Reads 41 machine formats

JEF, PES, DST, EXP, VP3, XXX, HUS and many more, each drawn as the stitches sew. SVG artwork too, ready to start a design from.

One card per design

The same design in six formats, or copied into three folders, is one card, not nine. The formats and the other places it's kept are listed in its details.

Looks inside zips

A zip of designs shows its pictures without unzipping. An alphabet is one card, not 60 letters. Unzip here when you want the files, and open the zip's read-me or license with a click.

The numbers you need

Size in millimeters and inches, stitches, color stops, trims and the threads. Search by name, sort, or show only one kind.

Open in StitchLab

Double-click a design and it opens in StitchLab, ready to resize, recolor or add a name to. Pick several and they open together.

An alphabet zip as one card: its 79 letters and six formats listed in the details, with Unzip here

An alphabet is one card

A zip with a letter in every format would flood the screen with hundreds of files. Design Explorer shows it as one card with its letters and formats, and unzips it when you're ready to sew.

Working files from other embroidery programs are listed beside the machine files of the same design, and StitchLab projects show their picture, size and threads. Design Explorer never changes, moves or renames a design. It only looks.

What it does on your computer

Reads
Only the folders and drives you add as places. Reading a network drive is your computer reading your own drive.
Writes
One folder of its own, in your Windows user folder where programs keep their settings: your places, its list of designs and the pictures it has drawn. Unzip here makes a new folder beside the zip, never over anything.
Internet
None. No account, no tracking, no ads fetched, no reports sent. Updates only when you download a new version.
Open in StitchLab
The design is handed to StitchLab in your browser over a private connection that never leaves your computer, for that one design, and closed straight after. The Activity panel shows every step.
Windows
A Start menu entry and an entry in Settings → Apps. Nothing else is changed.
Removing it
Settings → Apps → StitchLab Design Explorer → Uninstall. To remove every trace, also delete its own folder: type %APPDATA% in File Explorer's address bar, press Enter, and delete the folder com.gostitchlab.designexplorer.

Get it

Download for Windows

  1. Download the installer (StitchLab-Design-Explorer-0.1.0.msi, 4.7 MB).
  2. Open it. While Design Explorer is in beta, Windows may say "Windows protected your PC": click More info, then Run anyway.
  3. Start it from the Start menu and add your first place.
Download the installer Version 0.1.0 · Windows 10 and 11, 64-bit
Coming soon

Microsoft Store and Mac

Design Explorer is on its way to the Microsoft Store, where it installs and updates by itself. A Mac version comes after.