Brushes · Sketchbook Brush packs for Sketchbook.
Sketchbook is a lovely, fast sketching app whose vendor has never sold a brush and no longer runs a marketplace — so the search for packs lands on dead Extras links and decade-old forum threads. Here is what actually exists, and what honestly does not.
A great app with an abandoned brush ecosystem.
Brush sets travel as .skbrushes files through the
app's brush menu. What ships with the app, plus sets shared by
other users, is the entire supply — the Autodesk-era Extras
catalogue is gone.
Nothing from other ecosystems imports: no .brushset,
no .abr. That is not a Sketchbook flaw so much as the
industry default — brush settings are engine-specific everywhere,
and only the
textures ever really transfer. If you own packs elsewhere,
their stamp images usually extract as ordinary files; how far
Sketchbook lets you rebuild around them depends on its brush
customisation, which is deliberately simpler than a full engine.
And that is the real fork in the road. If Sketchbook's built-in library covers your work, it is hard to beat at free. If you are buying brushes and want the library to outlive the app and the device, buy them in a format built to travel — one file that imports on iPad, Mac and Android — and judge any pack, ours included, by what actually makes a brush pack good.
The Apex O brush studio → The Android alternatives, compared →
.skbrushes
Sketchbook's own brush-set file, moved in and out through the brush menu. The only format it speaks.
No marketplace
The old Extras catalogue did not survive the move from Autodesk. Dead links to it still rank; ignore them.
No cross-imports
Procreate and Photoshop packs will not load. Textures extract; settings never follow.
If portability matters
One .apexobrush imports on iPad, Mac and Android —
a library that follows you.
How the format works.
Sketchbook brushes, answered.
What brush format does Sketchbook use?
Sketchbook’s brush sets travel as .skbrushes files, exported and imported through the app’s brush menu. There is no first-party brush store: sets come bundled with the app or are shared by other users.
Can you use Procreate or Photoshop brushes in Sketchbook?
No — Sketchbook does not import .brushset or .abr files. As with every pair of drawing apps, the settings are engine-specific and do not translate. What you can salvage from a pack you own is its textures, since most brush formats are archives whose stamp images extract as ordinary files; Sketchbook’s own brush customisation then decides how far you can rebuild around them.
Is there a marketplace for Sketchbook brushes?
Not any more. The Extras catalogue of the Autodesk era did not survive the app’s move to Sketchbook Inc, which is why searches for Sketchbook brush packs mostly surface forum threads and old links. Community-shared .skbrushes sets are what actually exists today.
Do Apex Olira brush packs work in Sketchbook?
Not as an import — Sketchbook does not read .apexobrush files. A .apexobrush is a plain ZIP whose textures extract as images, but if what you want is a growing library of portable brushes, the honest answer is an app built around a portable format: the same .apexobrush imports on iPad, Mac and Android.
We build one of the apps mentioned on this page and say so plainly — every comparison we publish carries its sources.