Tips on Downloading and Saving your Embroidery Designs

Tips on Downloading & Saving Your Embroidery Designs

Buying new embroidery designs is exciting!
You might be itching to stitch straight away, or you may be happily adding them to your collection for later. Either way, the first steps are always the same:

✔ Download the design
✔ Unzip the files
✔ Transfer them to your embroidery machine

Sounds easy, right?

In theory, yes — but from the number of emails we receive and questions posted in our Facebook Group, we know this part can sometimes feel confusing.

That’s completely normal.

We all use different computers, operating systems, embroidery machines, and have varying levels of computer confidence. When someone has trouble downloading or can’t see a design on their machine, it’s usually just a matter of working through the steps and figuring out where things went astray.

So let’s break it down in plain speak.

The Basic Process

There are just three main steps:

1️⃣ Download the file
2️⃣ Unzip the files
3️⃣ Transfer the files to your machine

1️⃣ Downloading a Design

Downloading simply means saving the file to your computer.

Your computer will automatically save the file to a location — usually the Downloads folder or the last place you saved something.

Helpful Tip

If you know you downloaded a design but can’t find it:

• Download it again
• Watch closely where your computer saves it

That will usually tell you exactly where the original file went.

2️⃣ Saving & Organising Your Designs

When you’re starting out, it’s common to save designs to your Desktop or Downloads folder.
That’s fine — but it can quickly get messy!

From experience, we strongly recommend creating a folder on your computer called something like:

�� Kreative Kiwi Designs
(or one main Embroidery Designs folder, with subfolders for each designer)

Later on, when you’re looking for a design you know you have, you’ll know exactly where to go.

3️⃣ Unzipping Your Files

To make downloads quicker, our design sets are delivered as ZIP (compressed) files.

Before your embroidery machine can read the designs, you must unzip (extract) them.

The good news?
You usually do not need special software.

Most modern computers can unzip files easily:

• Right-click on the ZIP file
• Choose Extract or Extract All

This creates a normal folder containing:

• Embroidery files
• PDF instructions (if applicable)
• Colour charts or extras

⚠️ Important:
Your embroidery machine cannot read files while they are still zipped.

�� Helpful Videos

If you’d rather watch than read, we have step-by-step videos showing:

Watch Kay unzip file and transfer to her USB, then machine

Watch Sue from OML Embroidery 

• Create a Folder on your computer to save your designs
• Download a file
• Unzip a File

❓ Frequently Asked Questions About Downloading

Can I save Embroidery designs to my I-Pad?

I'm having troublle unzipping your designs - my computer says I need to install Winzip

When I try to open my designs, my Computer says I need Acrobat Reader?

Windows 10 shows my embroidery designs as PDF's

Why does my Machine stitch in a different order than your Instructions?