The embroidery file viewer that opens the file.

Someone sends you a design and your phone has no idea what to do with it. Hoopside opens it and shows you the design the way it will actually stitch — real size, stitch count, numbered colour stops and the thread list.

PES · DST · JEF · EXP · VP3 · XXX · PEC

Viewing is free, forever. No ads, no account, nothing leaves your phone.

It reads the file, not the file name

Designs arrive from WhatsApp, a Facebook group, a Downloads folder or an Etsy purchase — often with the extension stripped or renamed to something odd. Hoopside identifies a design from its contents, so those still open. That is exactly where most embroidery viewer apps give up, and it is the complaint under nearly every one of them.

See it before you hoop

The design rendered stitch by stitch in its real thread colours, on a dark stage where colour reads true. Pinch to zoom into the satin stitches.

The figures that matter

Real size in millimetres, total stitch count, the smallest standard hoop it fits, trims, jumps and an estimated thread length.

Numbered colour stops

In the order your machine will ask for them, with thread names — so you can write the shopping list before you start.

Watch it stitch out

Play the design stitch by stitch at your own speed, so you spot a long jump before it is in the fabric rather than after.

Convert it for the machine you own

Bought a DST and own a Brother? Hoopside saves any design as DST (Tajima), PES (Brother, Babylock), JEF (Janome), VP3 (Husqvarna, Pfaff), EXP (Melco, Bernina) or XXX (Singer).

Stitches are re-encoded properly for the format you pick, so long stitches and jumps stay inside what that machine accepts. Renaming a file's extension does not do this, which is why a renamed design is the one the machine refuses.

Convert a whole folder at once — and every file it could not do comes back named, with the reason.
A printable thread chart — the design, its figures and a tick box for every colour stop, to tape up next to the machine.

$9.99 once, not a subscription · regional pricing applies

Why the conversion is worth trusting

A design that stitches wrongly costs an evening, thread and fabric. So Hoopside's readers and writers are checked against pyembroidery — the open-source library Ink/Stitch is built on — on every single build, not once at the start.

Gate	What it proves	Result
Read	Every reader reproduces the reference library's own read of the same bytes	21,816 stitches 35 files · 0 mismatches
Write	The reference library reads back what Hoopside wrote	20 files · 0 failing
Convert	Every format to every other, matched against the reference's own conversion	245 files · 0 failing

Honest about what it is not

It does not digitize

Hoopside will not turn a photo or a logo into stitches. That is digitizing, it is different software, and any app promising it for a few pounds is not telling you the truth.

Thread names are the nearest shades in the chart the file carried. Most DST files carry no colour information at all, so check them against real spools before you buy thread — Hoopside will not invent a catalogue number it was never given.

It does not open .emb (Wilcom) or browse inside a zip yet. Unzip the file first, then open a design from inside it.

What is free, and what is not

Free, forever: opening, viewing, zooming, stitch-by-stitch playback, every figure, the colour stops and the thread list. No ads. No watermark. No account.
One optional purchase: saving to another machine's format, the printable thread chart and batch conversion. Once — not a subscription, and there is no trial because a one-time purchase cannot have one.

Free viewing is the proof before paying. If Hoopside cannot open your files, you have lost nothing.