Frequently asked questions.

It organizes your STL and 3MF files. Specifically: it auto-detects which files belong together (the "Print" concept), gives you a per-Print checklist for tracking print progress, lets you tag and group with Collections, and gives you a search that works across notes and metadata. It runs in your browser today; a desktop app is on the roadmap.

Anyone with 3D print files who wants them organized. That includes miniature painters with Patreon backlogs, makers building gridfinity systems, terrain printers with hundreds of modular tiles, cosplayers with multi-part armor builds, functional-print enthusiasts, and people who just have a downloads folder full of cool stuff they meant to print someday. The AI grouping, checklists, search, and sharing don't care what you print - they care about helping you find and use what you've got.

Yes, all of them. STL Stash works with the files themselves once they're on your computer, so it doesn't matter where you got them. Files from any marketplace, any Patreon creator, any Kickstarter reward, any Discord drop, or any direct creator site work the same way. You have two options for getting them in: 1. Upload directly. Drag a folder or select individual files. Works for STL and 3MF. 2. Paste a Printables URL. STL Stash will import the files and any available metadata automatically, including thumbnails, descriptions, and tags from the listing. We're working on direct URL import for more sites soon, so you'll be able to paste a link from MakerWorld, Thangs, MyMiniFactory, Cults3D, and others without downloading first. It also works on files you've created yourself. Whether you sculpted in ZBrush, modeled in Fusion 360, designed in Blender, or remixed something in TinkerCAD, your own work lives in your library alongside everything else. STL Stash treats every file the same way. If you've got it on your drive, you can stash it.

No, and it never will. The AI in STL Stash has one job: figuring out which files belong together as a Print. That's it. It looks at filenames, file relationships, and basic structure to recognize that "Goblin_Body.stl" and "Goblin_Body_Presupports.stl" probably belong to the same model, then groups them for you. It doesn't generate STLs. It doesn't write product descriptions. It doesn't remix your files into new content. It doesn't pretend to replace the creators whose work you've collected. We're equally clear on a related point: we do not train AI models on your files. Your STLs, your custom designs, your Patreon downloads, your reference images, your notes - none of it is used to train any AI model, ours or anyone else's. The files you upload exist in your library to be organized for you, not to feed a training pipeline. This matters because the 3D printing community has watched generative AI scrape creators' work without permission, and we're not interested in being part of that pattern. Creators put real time into the files you've collected. Your library should respect their work, not contribute to replacing it. If we ever change our approach to AI features, you'll hear about it loudly and clearly before anything changes, and you'll always have the option to opt out without losing access to the product.

Yes, sharing is built in. You can share individual Prints or entire Collections with anyone else who has an STL Stash account. Send your partner the kitchen organizers you're planning to print this weekend. Share a Collection of holiday gifts with a friend who wants to print along. Drop your kid a Collection of toys you've queued up so they can pick what to print next. Sharing is per-Print or per-Collection, which means you have control. Your full library stays private. The recipient sees exactly what you shared, with thumbnails, notes, and metadata, and they can browse it the same way they browse their own Stash. Looking ahead, we're building paid sharing for creators. If you make your own STLs and want to charge subscribers for access to your work, you'll be able to set up a paid Collection that handles subscriptions, delivers files automatically, and gives your supporters a real library experience instead of a zip file dump. Lower platform fees than the alternatives, better experience for the people paying you. We'll have more to share on this as we get closer to launching it. For now, free sharing between accounts is live. Paid creator access is on the way.

No. Your library is private by default and stays that way unless you decide otherwise. There's no public profile, no gallery, no discover feed, no algorithm surfacing your Prints to other users. Nobody is browsing through your collection. Nobody is "following" you. Other STL Stash users can't see what you have, what you've tagged, or what you've printed. The only time anything you've stored becomes visible to someone else is when you explicitly create a share link for a specific Print or Collection and send it to a specific person. Even then, they only see what you shared, not your full library. Your stuff is your stuff. That's the whole model.

Yes. Every Print and every individual file has a built-in 3D viewer that works directly in your browser. Rotate, zoom, and pan to inspect a model before you slice it. No plugins, no separate downloads, no native app required. The viewer handles STL and 3MF files, so whatever's in your Stash, you can preview it without leaving the page. This is especially useful for big Patreon drops where you want to scan through a creator's monthly release quickly to decide what to print first, or for checking that a multi-part model has all the pieces you expected before committing it to your library. We'll keep improving the viewer over time. Things like exploded views for multi-part Prints, measurement tools, and orientation suggestions are on the roadmap. But the core "see your models in 3D, in any browser, right now" experience is shipping today.

No, and there won't be one. STL Stash is built for the desktop because that's where 3D printing actually happens. You're managing files for your slicer, organizing collections, reviewing thumbnails, and queuing prints. All of that lives on a real screen with a real keyboard and mouse, not a phone. We'd rather build one excellent desktop experience than spread thin trying to maintain a mobile app on top of it. The web app runs in any modern browser on Mac, Windows, and Linux. The desktop app, when it ships, will give you a native experience on those same platforms with access to your local files paired with our online syncing, sharing, and AI services.

10 days free, full access to all features, no credit card required. Sign up, start uploading, and see if STL Stash fits how you work. The trial includes 5 GB of storage, which is enough to import a batch of files and put the AI to work. You can subscribe any time during the trial if you're ready to commit. If you wait until the end, you'll need to subscribe to keep using your library. We'll email you a reminder a few days before your trial ends so nothing sneaks up on you. No card up front means no surprise charges, no "oh I forgot to cancel" moments, and no friction to try the product. We think the product earns the subscription on its own.

Nothing bad. We don't lock your account or force you to upgrade. Storage above 200 GB is billed at $0.05/GB per month and added to your regular subscription invoice. So if you used 250 GB last month, that's an extra $2.50 on top of your subscription. No surprises, no separate billing, no upsell pop-ups. You'll get notifications at 80%, 95%, and 100% of your included storage so you can decide whether to clean up files, accept the overage, or keep growing. During beta, there's a hard cap at +1 TB overage to prevent runaway bills, after which uploads pause until you free up space or the cap is raised. If you have a one-time large drop and don't want overage to kick in, archiving older Prints into a downloaded backup is always an option. Your files are yours to manage however works best for you.

A few honest reasons. We don't show ads. We don't sell your data. We don't train AI on your library. We'd rather charge fairly than play games with the things that actually keep the lights on. A free tier always has a catch. Either it's funded by ads, by selling user data, by training models on your files, or by a paid tier so expensive it subsidizes everyone else. None of those felt right for a product built for hobbyists. Charging fairly lets us focus. We can keep shipping features, fixing rough edges, improving the AI, and giving you the experience you deserve, instead of chasing alternative revenue streams that work against you. Your subscription pays for actual development time, not someone else's marketing budget. The 10-day trial is enough time to upload a real chunk of your library, see the AI in action, and decide if it earns the subscription. If 10 days isn't enough, email us and we'll extend it.

BYOS is a separate $5/month plan where you connect your own Dropbox instead of using STL Stash storage. You get every feature the standard Maker plan has - AI Prints, auto-tagging, checklists, slicer integrations, collections, and sharing - but your files live in your own Dropbox rather than on our servers. It's cheaper because you're bringing the storage. There's no 200 GB ceiling and no overage from us; your limit is just whatever your Dropbox plan gives you. Like every plan, BYOS comes with a 10-day free trial, no credit card required. Connect Dropbox in two clicks and your existing folders become a searchable, AI-organized library - no migration required.

When you connect Dropbox on a BYOS plan, you authorize STL Stash through the official Dropbox API. Here's exactly what that means: Read: We read the files and folders you grant access to so we can detect Prints, generate thumbnails, pull metadata, build your search index, and run AI organization. Write: When you upload or import files through STL Stash, we write them into your Dropbox on your behalf. Delete: We only delete a file when you explicitly delete it inside STL Stash. We never delete your Dropbox content automatically or in bulk. We don't keep a separate permanent copy of your files on our servers - they stay in your Dropbox, under your control. We never sell Dropbox data and never use it to train AI. You can disconnect anytime from STL Stash or revoke access from your Dropbox account settings, and your files stay exactly where they are. We're independent developers on the Dropbox API. Dropbox doesn't sponsor or endorse STL Stash.

Your files are stored in secure cloud storage today, encrypted both in transit and at rest. They live on infrastructure we operate through trusted providers, the same kind of providers that host most modern software you already use. A few specific commitments about how we handle them: We don't sell your data. Not to advertisers, not to data brokers, not to anyone. Your library exists to be useful to you, not to be packaged and resold. We don't train AI on your files. Your STLs, your designs, your Patreon downloads, your reference images, none of it is used to train any AI model, ours or anyone else's. We don't store your payment information. Stripe handles billing entirely, so your credit card details never touch our servers. We see transaction records, not card numbers. We use a small number of service providers to operate STL Stash, like cloud storage and email delivery. Each one is bound by contract to use your data only to provide services to us, never for their own purposes. The full list lives in our Privacy Policy. Looking ahead, the desktop app will change this picture. Once it ships, you'll be able to access your local files directly alongside your own storage, paired with STL Stash's online services for syncing, sharing, and AI evaluation. Your library grows without limits.

No. Your files exist in your library to be organized for you, not to feed a training pipeline. We do not use your STLs, your designs, your Patreon downloads, your reference images, your notes, or any other content you upload to train any AI model. Not ours, not any third party's. This is true today and it's the commitment we've made publicly in our Terms of Service and Privacy Policy. Here's what the AI in STL Stash actually does. When you upload files, the AI looks at filenames, file structure, file relationships, and basic metadata to figure out which files belong together as a Print. It groups your goblin's body, base, weapons, and presupports into a single record so you can find them later. That's the whole job. The AI returns a result to you, that result becomes part of your library, and the work is done. What it doesn't do is read your mesh data into a training set. It doesn't learn from your private library to improve a model that gets used by someone else. It doesn't use your work to power a generative tool that could replace the creators you've supported. The 3D printing community has watched generative AI scrape creators' work without permission, and we are not going to be part of that pattern. If we ever change our approach to AI features, including any future opt-in feature where users could choose to contribute their own corrections to improve the product, you'll hear about it loudly and in advance. Any change like that would require explicit consent from you, and you'd always have the option to decline without losing access to STL Stash.

Your files are always yours. They're the same files you uploaded, in the same standard formats they came in. You can download any individual file, an entire Print, a whole Collection, or your whole library at any time. That's true during your subscription and during the cancellation grace period. We don't hold your files hostage. What lives in our system is the metadata layer. The AI groupings, your tags, your Collections, your notes, your checklists, your version history, your favorites. This is the organizational work you've built up while using STL Stash, and it's the thing that actually has to be exported separately because it doesn't exist anywhere else. Account settings has an export option that gives you back the metadata in a clean, readable format you can keep alongside your files or import into another tool. Nothing about your data is locked behind our walls. If you decide STL Stash isn't for you, you walk away with everything you put in and everything you built on top of it.

Your library stays accessible for 14 days after cancellation. You can log in, browse, and export anything you want during that window. We treat cancellation as a pause, not an immediate goodbye, in case you change your mind or just need time to grab files. We'll send a reminder 24 hours before the deletion deadline so you have a clear chance to download whatever you still want. If you log back in and resubscribe before the 14 days are up, your library picks up exactly where you left off, with all your Prints, Collections, tags, notes, and checklists intact. After 14 days, your files and metadata are removed from our production systems. Any active shares of your Prints or Collections are revoked at the same time, so people you previously shared with will lose access. Backup copies cycle out of our systems within the standard backup rotation window after that. If you want to come back later, you're welcome to. Just create a new account and start fresh.

Not today, but it's on our radar. The desktop app is our priority right now, since it's the bigger architectural shift and unlocks local file access paired with our online services. Once that's shipped and stable, self-hosting is something we plan to explore. We can't promise dates or final specifics yet, but the rough direction is: Desktop app first, then self-hosted options for users who want full infrastructure control. If self-hosting is critical to your workflow, drop us a line at [email protected] and let us know what you'd need it to do. Real demand signal helps us prioritize.

STL and 3MF today. These are the two formats nearly every 3D printing creator distributes, so most of what you'd want to import is already covered. 3MF gets first-class treatment, including extraction of embedded metadata like model names, descriptions, and any settings the creator included. STL files are handled with our AI grouping, thumbnails, and full Print detection. We get format requests regularly, especially for OBJ and STEP. If a format you need is missing, email [email protected] and let us know what you'd use it for. Demand signal directly informs what we add next.

The web uploader handles files up to 100 MB each, with up to 100 files per upload batch. That covers nearly every realistic case, including most multi-part Patreon drops and creator releases. If you're dropping a larger collection in one go, you can batch it across multiple uploads or wait for the desktop app, which is being built specifically to handle bigger libraries without browser limits. Your total storage quota depends on your plan and is always visible in account settings. We send a heads-up as you approach your limit so nothing surprises you.

STL Stash works with any slicer that can open STL or 3MF files, which is essentially all of them. We've built specific integrations for the most popular ones, and you'll see them as direct options when you open a Print: OrcaSlicer, PrusaSlicer, UltiMaker Cura, Bambu Studio, Lychee Slicer, Chitubox, Creality Print, ElegooSlicer, SuperSlicer, ideaMaker, FlashPrint, Simplify3D, Anycubic Slicer, and Voxelab Print. How smoothly the handoff works depends on the slicer and whether you've installed our local desktop agent. The agent is a small background app that runs on your computer and bridges the gap between STL Stash and slicers that don't natively support direct browser launching. It's free, lightweight, and optional. With the agent installed, direct opening works for the broadest range of slicers, including ones that otherwise require manual download. It also detects which slicers and printer profiles you have set up, so the right slicer launches with the right profile preselected. Without the agent, slicers that support direct protocol handoff still work with one click, including OrcaSlicer, PrusaSlicer, Cura, Lychee, and Chitubox. Others fall back to a standard download, which works fine but takes the extra step of opening the file yourself. For any slicer not in our list, downloading the file and opening it manually always works. Files come in standard STL or 3MF format that any slicer can read. If your slicer has gotten popular enough that we should add a direct integration, email [email protected] and let us know.

Not yet, but it's on our radar. For now, you can paste a Printables URL directly into STL Stash and we'll handle the import, including files and metadata, automatically. Direct URL import for more sites like MakerWorld, Thangs, and Cults3D is in the works too. A browser extension would make the workflow even smoother, especially for users who download from multiple marketplaces, and it's something we're seriously evaluating. If it would change how you use STL Stash, email [email protected] and let us know which sites matter most to you. Real demand helps us prioritize.

No. Ever. Your files work anywhere STL files work. Slicers, viewers, modeling software, other organization tools, your file system, everything. We don't convert your files into a proprietary format, lock them behind our app, or make them dependent on our service to function. They're the same standard STL or 3MF files you uploaded. STL Stash exists to organize and send them faster, not to trap them. Download any file at any time and it opens in OrcaSlicer, Bambu Studio, PrusaSlicer, Cura, or anywhere else exactly the way it would have if it had never touched our servers. If we ever shut down, get acquired, or change direction in a way you don't like, your files are still your files. That's a commitment, not a marketing line.