Excalidraw shape libraries

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Excalidraw has its own library format, separate from draw.io's. The two are not interchangeable.

#How it works

Excalidraw libraries are collections of pre-drawn elements you can drop onto a canvas. Build your own, or import one, and it appears in the editor's library panel.

An Excalidraw library panel showing hand drawn AWS service icons including Lambda, AppSync, API Gateway, DynamoDB, Aurora, EventBridge, SQS, SNS, S3, CloudFront, SES, CloudWatch, Step Functions and Ro
A loaded library becomes a panel of ready made elements to drag onto the canvas, here a set of AWS service icons.
The Excalidraw canvas with an Add Library button above it and the Library panel open, showing an empty personal library above a grid of AWS service icons.
Your own saved shapes sit above the sets you have added, and Add Library at the top of the canvas brings in more.

#What it is good for

  • Recurring workshop furniture: swimlanes, sticky notes, personas.

  • Rough versions of your own components, for sketching architecture quickly.

  • Anything you find yourself redrawing freehand more than twice.

#A few things that catch people out

  • Excalidraw and draw.io libraries are different formats and cannot be shared between editors.

  • Library elements keep the sketch style; they will not make a diagram look formal.

  • Libraries are per site, like draw.io's.

Stop redrawing the same sticky note.