Envato removed the free trial in March 2023, and since then, everyone’s been wondering how to get more free stuff.
So I decided to write this article before I get the hundredth email asking, “Hey Matic, how do I get Envato for free?”. And my response always is, “you can get 12 free files or use free AI tools, but for the full functionality, you’ll need an Envato subscription“.
Here’s everything you need to know about using Envato for free.
Table of contents:
Option 1. Free files
Downloading free Envato files is easy and doesn’t even require you to enter your payment information. You just create a free account and download any or all of 12 hand-selected free videos, fonts, templates, and images each month. Here’s the short way.
- Go to the free files page.
- Click the red download icon under the file you want.
- Click the “Create a free account” button or sign in.
- Once signed in, download 12 files every month.
But I don’t like this option because you can download only the files that Envato’s curation team selected for that month. That’s similar to iStock’s free videos each month and Shutterstock’s 40 free videos program, I’ve found recently.
- Go to the free files page. You can also find it by going to Envato, hovering More in the navigation, and selecting Free Files from the dropdown.
- If you don’t already have one, you can create a free Envato account by clicking Create account now. You can also click any red download icon under the file you want.
- Once signed in, click the red download icon under any free file.
- Add your file to a project in the pop-up that opens. You can create a project by clicking + Create new project and giving it a name. Before you can download a file, you need to assign it to a project, which gives you the license for that project only. Then click Add & download to download the file.
That’s it! You can repeat this process for any file on this page, every month.
These assets may include videos, fonts, templates, presentations, or images.
What can you do with Envato free files?
Every month, Envato’s curation team picks 12 files from their library of 22 million royalty-free assets that you can download without subscribing. These files come with Envato’s commercial license, which means you can:
- Use items commercially (but not for merchandise)
- Use items forever (in licensed projects)
But because you don’t pay anything for the files, you don’t get any indemnity, aka legal coverage. While you don’t really need it for personal projects, it’s something to remember.
At the same time, you can only use each free file in one project. While creating multiple accounts could circumvent this, it’s not allowed as per Envato’s terms of use.
Option 2: Free AI credits
Envato has been rapidly adding new generative tools to its Envato Labs AI suite. It started out as a simple AI search that recommended media files based on the project you described. But now, you have a plethora of generative tools, including text-to-image, video, music gen, and audio gen.
Unfortunately, only a couple of these are free. By creating a free account, you can use AI Search and browse InspoGen without limitation. You also get 5 credits for AI ImageGen, Envato’s wrapper of several of the most popular AI image models.
To get access to the rest of tools, you’ll need an active Envato subscription. These include ImageEdit, VideoGen, MusicGen, and VoiceGen, with more tools coming soon.
Are there other ways to get Envato for free?
There were and are many ways to cheat Envato, but they are illegal and could cost you thousands in legal expenses if you get sued. Also, they are immoral.
- Copyright theft. Every file on Envato (or any other stock footage site) is royalty-free. This doesn’t mean that it’s also without a copyright. On the contrary, the copyright belongs to the contributors. By using a file without a license, you infringe upon a copyright, with legal fines of up to $150,000 in the US.
- Not compensating creators. Every time you download a file from Envato, that creator gets a commission. By stealing a file, you’re not compensating the creator, who’s just you and me, for their hard work.
Nonetheless, I’ll list all the methods I know of to warn you about them and explain how they can get you into trouble.
Envato premium cookies
Works? ❌
Legal? ❌
This method was effective until 2021 because of a loophole in Envato’s system, which has since been fixed and no longer works. The technique relied on the fact that every paying subscriber would have a cookie stored in their browser.
Envato used to check this cookie when the subscriber logged in to verify their active subscription. If someone shared their cookie with you, you could either manually add it yourself or use a plugin like Cookie Editor to gain access.
Account sharing
Works? ✅
Legal? ❌
Some people share an account or buy in a group, so the subscription fee is divided between several people. This method has two problems:
- Since individual subscriptions grant a single-user license, only the person who registered the account has the right to use all the files, while everyone else is committing copyright infringement.
- Also, if too many IPs log in to an Envato account, the system will recognize this, and the account will be blocked.
Requesting files
Works? ✅
Legal? ❌
Some Fiverr gigs or BlackHat forum members (see below) offer free or cheap downloads of Envato via their activated subscription. This method is the same as account sharing, and the consequences are the same—you simply don’t get a license to use that content. Also, these offers usually take you to a link with a downloadable file, which can contain malware or adware.
Cracking
Works? ✅ (sometimes)
Legal? ❌
Envato cracking is a method of acquiring files without an account. The crack circumvents Envato’s protection and requests a file directly from the server. Again, the files you get are not licensed, and you may even get a virus.
Related reading:
- How to download Envato templates for free
- The best Envato alternatives 2025
- Envato free trial: can you still get one?
- Envato coupon code: 10% OFF sitewide
- Envato review
This article was originally published in August 2022. The most recent update was in May 2025.
