Procreate comes with a ton of amazing brushes in several categories.
You can get away with using Procreate without ever purchasing any other brushes. Many of my art projects have been done using only the brushes that come with Procreate.
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But with so many cool brushes out that there you can purchase or even download for free, you’ll likely want to install some new brushes into Procreate at some point.
In this post I’ll show you how to download brushes for Procreate and install them so you can use them right away.
A Word of Warning About Brushes
There are so many brushes out there that you can download or purchase. I recommend you be somewhat selective about which you choose. There isn’t a built in way to organize brushes.
That means that the more brushes you purchase, the longer your brush list gets. This makes it hard to find what you’re looking for.
It’ll slow down your workflow if you have to keep scrolling to look for the Procreate brush pack you wish to use.
I got so frustrated with this that I created a Skillshare class on how to organize your brushes where I teach the methods I’ve used to manage my LARGE brush collection. I also created a blog post on keeping track of which brushes you used in a project.
In addition to what I teach in that class, I’ve also started to delete brush sets that I don’t use. I’m creating a list of my favorite Procreate brushes if you’re curious about what I’ve kept. (It’s a work in progress).
Where to Find Free Procreate Brushes
There are several places you can find free Procreate brushes. There are Facebook groups dedicated to sharing brushes. You can also do a search for free Procreate brushes and find a lot of different things. I created a set of free teardrop stamp brushes you can download.
Keep in mind that free brushes will be hit or miss. There’s not much motivation to update and tweak brushes that one is giving away for free, so some of these may be optimized for previous versions of Procreate.
Try them out and delete them if they aren’t what you’re looking for.
In my opinion, the best place to find free brushes is on the Procreate community website. Here is a link to my favorite “free” inking brushes, which I found offered on the Procreate community.
These are offered on Gumroad, which allows you to set a price. You can get them for free or pay for them. Since I love these brushes and use them all the time, I paid for them.
If you have a Skillshare account, many classes provide free brushes. These are usually pretty good! Some of my favorite brushes were created by Jennifer and Brenda and offered in their classes.
Where to Buy Procreate Brushes
In general, although not always, brushes I’ve purchased have been better than the brushes I’ve downloaded for free.
I buy most of my brushes at Design Cuts.
I think their brushes are the best bargain because they have quantity discounts. I tend to purchase five sets at a time so I can get them all at 50% off. (It seems they’ve changed their pricing a little bit and don’t include sales items in the bulk discounts so the deals aren’t as great).
Design Cuts also has bundles that often include great Procreate brushes.
Creative Market is another great place to buy premium brushes. Although there’s a lot of overlap with Design Cuts, there are some that are only available on one or the other.
Etsy is another option for purchasing Procreate brushes. I purchased my favorite watercolor set there.
You can also purchase brushes through Patreon, Gumroad, and on the creators individual websites.
How to Download Brushes For Procreate and Import
Buying brushes is all well and good. Knowing how to download brushes for Procreate and add them to the app is pretty important though.
I’ll go through a few different methods:
1. Download and import Procreate brushes right on your iPad.
2. Download to your computer and transfer to your iPad and import Procreate brushes with AirDrop
3. Download to your computer and transfer to your iPad using iCloud, Dropbox or Google Drive.
The Easiest Way to Import and Use Procreate Brushes
The absolute easiest way to import Procreate brushes you’ve purchased is when using your iPad.
I’ll start by showing you how to download brushes for Procreate using DesignCuts.
First, go to your purchases while in Safari on your iPad and select “View Files” and then click on the file button that shows up.
A pop up will come up asking if you want to download. Say yes.
Wait for it to download. You can watch the progress by clicking on the little download arrow.
Then either go to the Files app on your iPad and find the download in your Downloads folder, or click on it at the top of your screen where the little arrow showed up when you were downloading.
These will often download as a ZIP file.
Tap on that file to unzip it.
Brushes that are made for Procreate use the file extensions of .brushset or .brush. You’ll be able to see these in your files because they will have a little Procreate Brush Icon.
You can also use Photoshop brushes which are .abr.
The .brushset files are brush sets, and usually contain a bunch of brushes. The title of the .brushset file will show up in your brushes list when you import it to Procreate.
Clicking on the .brushset file makes it automatically upload to Procreate. If you look at your brush list, you’ll find it at the top. You may need to scroll up.
You can move this library down if you wish to do so by touching it and moving it down the list.
If the brushes you purchased came as .brush files, that means then each file is an individual brush. You can select the single brushes by clicking on them individually and they will open up in Procreate, but they will go into your “Imported” folder, which is the last folder in your brush library.
You can move those brushes out of the imported library if you wish to do so by selecting them and then dragging them to a different folder.
Import Procreate Brushes Using Split Screen on Your iPad
If I purchase a set that comes as individual files, I like to use the method where you use multitask (split screen) with Procreate and the files app. This allows me to move the brushes all at the same time and into a folder where I want them.
Make sure that both Procreate and the files app are in your bottom menu bar on your iPad. If you open them both they should be there since your most recent apps are usually on that bar.
Open up Procreate.
Then slightly swipe up, making your bottom bar show up.
Select the files app. While keeping your finger on the screen, drag it up next to Procreate until it opens up next to Procreate. You want it to be open rather than a floating window, like this:
Go into Procreate and open a canvas. It doesn’t matter if it’s a new one or one you’ve already created. I like to open a new one so that I can test out the brushes right away because I think it’s fun 🙂
Open up your brush library and scroll up to the top and select the plus sign. This creates a new brush set.
It’ll say “Untitled Set.” Select the little Procreate symbol next to that and rename the brush set to whatever you want it to be called. I recommend picking the name of the brushset or perhaps the designer.
Now, go into your downloads folder and open the folder that contains the brushes you just purchased. Tap on “Select” at the top of the screen in your files app.
Then tap on each of the brush files that you want to import. A little circle should fill in like a checkbox next to them.
If you forget to tap “select” they will open up in Procreate into the Import folder rather than going into your new folder so don’t forget to do that part.
Once you select all of the brushes you want to import into your new folder – touch, hold and drag them over into the empty folder in Procreate.
Don’t try to drop them on the title because that’s way harder than it needs to be.
Instead, make sure the folder is open and drop them into the space where the brushes usually show.
Easy hey? Now all those brushes were moved into Procreate at the same time, kind of like if they would have already been in a brush set.
Importing Procreate Brushes From an Apple Computer With Airdrop
If you have a Macbook or an iMac and downloaded your files on your computer, the simplest way to transfer them is to use Airdrop.
Download the file to your computer. The files will often download as a ZIP file. Click on this to unzip it.
Open your downloads folder and unzip the file if necessary.
Open the folder and look for the brush files.
Right click on the brush file and select “share” and then Airdrop.
Your iPad will have to be on for this to work.
A screen will come up and show you some options on where to Airdrop your file. For instance, your phone and your iPad might show up if they are both on.
Select your iPad.
It will import into Procreate. Sometimes it asks you if you want to import into Procreate. Select yes.
By the way, you can do all of these same things with Procreate color palettes. You just can’t transfer them all at the same time.
Importing Procreate Brushes from a Mac without Airdrop
Another way to get your Procreate brushes to your iPad from your Macbook or iMac is to move your brush files from your downloads folder into your iCloud drive or other Cloud service.
Just drag the files from your download folder into the other folder.
Then those brushes will show up in your cloud service on your iPad and you can open them from there as described above.
I find it easiest to have my cloud service set up to use my Files app.
Importing Procreate Brushes from a PC
I don’t have a PC.
But if I did, the way I would import brushes to Procreate from my PC would be by using a cloud service like Dropbox or Google Drive.
Once you download your brushes then you will put them on Dropbox.
Open Dropbox on your iPad and then import them as described above. You can even activate your cloud services in your Files app and see your Files there.
Importing Procreate Brushes from your iPhone
Sometimes you find a brush while looking at your phone and want to download it right away! I get it. Download it. It will download into your Download folder in your Files app. Then you can open it while on your iPad from within your files app and import it in.
Sometimes it takes a bit for the files to all show in your cloud drive. I think this has to do with your wifi settings.
If you’re impatient, you could go into your files app on your phone and Airdrop your brushes from there.
Open your downloads folder (and then any folder that might have your brushes in it).
At the top of your screen you’ll see a circle with three dots.
Tap on that.
Tap on Select.
Select your brush files.
At the bottom of your screen, tap on the little box with an arrow pointing up.
There is a popup that will come up.
If your iPad is on, it’ll likely show up in the list. Otherwise, click on airdrop, make sure your iPad is on and tap on your iPad icon. This will transfer these brushes over to Procreate.
I hope you found this helpful. Now that you know how to download brushes for Procreate, it’s time to learn how to organize them!