Where to find free SVG images for Cricut and Silhouette

These sites offer premium graphics for commercial and personal use. I use many of these sites when looking for SVG files for cutting and making web graphics. Some sites may require a signup before you can download vector files, but all of the sites listed here have tons of free vector images.

Related: How to convert images to vector files.

pixabay.com – this is my go-to site for free vector images. Not only do they have tens of thousands of free SVG vector graphics, most are available for commercial use without attribution. You need to sign up for a free membership before you can download SVG files, but it’s painless, and for the most part the interface is easy to search and navigate. (I’ve never gotten any spammy emails from Pixabay, unlike many other sites that clog your inbox with offers as soon as you sign up for a free account.)

The range of quality of vector graphics available on Pixabay is quite variable. There are extremely high quality images available alongside some files that appear crude and childlike. Because the content is user generated, that’s not surprising, and certainly forgivable.

The site is ad-supported, so you have to be aware of ads for premium stock photo services that look like search results, but for such an amazing service, I can live with that. You can also support individual creators with a tip function.

freepik.com – Freepik is another great source of free vector images for personal or commercial use. Their license requires attribution for artwork used for commercial purposes, but allows for unlimited, perpetual personal use, anywhere in the world.

The vector files are in EPS format, which does not work in Cricut Design Space or in Silhouette Studio versions below the Business Edition. You can, however, convert EPS files to SVG files with any number of handy tools.

Freepik also has convenient search filters to narrow your search by file type, price, image orientation and color. There are tens of thousands of really great images for printing projects, t-shirt graphics, signs, posters, you name it.

flaticon.com – Flaticon is a sister site of Freepik and specializes in vector icons.  if you are looking for simple icon vectors for cards, banners, tumblers or stickers, there’s a great selection (3.5 million!) of images to choose from. These files are downloadable SVG files, and also come in a variety of other file formats.

Attribution is required if you want to use the free license for commercial projects.

all-free-download.com ­ –  All Free Download is another huge repository of vector graphics that is literally just a huge rabbit-hole waiting to swallow you. Not only can you find graphics there, but you can also download templates for print and web.

Graphics are free for personal use, and for commercial use with attribution. The downloads aren’t in SVG format, however, you will have to convert them from AI (Adobe Illustrator) or EPS format before using them with Cricut Design Space or Silhouette Studio.

publicdomainvectors.org – This is a very cool site offering free vector files that creators have made available to the public domain. There are about 65K files in their archive, so it isn’t the largest file library out there, but they offer filters to narrow search results by filetype (SVG, AI or EPS). Files are available free for personal or commercial use without attribution.

Public Domain Vectors also has two cool features that you main find useful. One is a Vector Generator, which will generate free, abstract vector art based on lines, shapes or text. This may or may not be useful to your crafting projects, but if you want a custom background for your phone, this is a cool way to do it.

There is also a free SVG editor tool. It’s similar to Cricut Design Space, in that it allows you to design with shapes, text and images; it also has freehand and line drawing tools that CDS does not. You can import files, export files as SVGs and work in different layers. I wouldn’t put all of your eggs in this basket, however. This seems like it’s still very “beta” and there were elements that didn’t work for me on a MAC even when I switched browsers, etc.

If you are using the Cricut Explore Air 2, Maker or Cricut Joy, you only have the option of using Cricut Design Space to cut and draw files.

Design Space is free software with very basic design tools, but you can import SVG files, as well as JPG and PNG files.

If you use a Silhouette Cameo, Portrait, or Curio machine, Silhouette Studio is a tad more complicated than Cricut Design Studio. It has more designer-friendly tools to create new images, but users of the free edition of the software are limited in the types of files they can import into Studio.

Silhouette Studio Basic Edition does not open SVG files; you need to pay for a software upgrade to Studio Designer Edition to unlock that function. Free version users can import DXF files that function just like SVG files in the software. DXF are the only vector file type that can be opened by the Silhouette Studio free version.

What's the difference between a DXF file and an SVG file? For vinyl cutting, there are no practical differences, although when you open a DXF in Silhouette Studio, you may only see the outline of the image without the fill. 

Users of the free version of Silhouette Studio can also import JPG and PNG files.