---
title: "LottieFiles"
description: "Browse your LottieFiles workspaces, edit a local working copy and publish an export when you choose."
canonical: "https://terminal.lottiefiles.com/docs/lottiefiles/"
last_updated: 2026-10-30
---

# LottieFiles

Browse your LottieFiles workspaces, edit a local working copy and publish an export when you choose.

## LottieFiles

This browser gives you a local working copy. For live timing and easing edits in a Creator
document, see [Creator sync](https://terminal.lottiefiles.com/docs/creator-sync.md). For the difference between a saved source and
a published export, see [Saving, exporting and publishing](https://terminal.lottiefiles.com/docs/concepts/saving-exporting-and-publishing.md).

Your LottieFiles workspaces, in a view of their own. Press `⌃L` (or click LottieFiles in the left panel, or File › LottieFiles): your
workspaces' projects are listed down the left, what's in the one you pick fills the middle as
tiles that show each animation, and the file you pick plays on the right with what it is and who
saved which version when. Sign in once (`↵` there, or `creator-tui
login`): LottieFiles opens in your browser to allow Creator Terminal, and the sign-in lasts months. Over
SSH, or on Linux with no display (a server, a container; WSL opens the Windows browser), there's
no browser to open, so the link is shown (`y` copies it) to open on any device.
Signed in, the copilot, Agents Mode and films also get LottieFiles' voices and sounds: lines
voiced, sounds made from words, and what a video without captions says
([Copilot](https://terminal.lottiefiles.com/docs/copilot.md#good-to-know)). The usage stats say which account they're from too
([Usage stats](https://terminal.lottiefiles.com/docs/home-and-screen.md#usage-stats)).

![The LottieFiles view: Demo Workspace's projects on the left, First Project's files as tiles (Shopping Sale picked), and Shopping Sale playing on the right with its size, frames and versions, and what can be done with it](https://terminal.lottiefiles.com/docs/assets/lottiefiles.png)

- **Find a file**: `⇥` steps through the places on the left (your recent files, Drafts, each
  project), `↵` goes into a folder (a folder's tile shows three of its files) and `⌫` back out,
  `[` `]` change workspace, `/` searches the whole workspace. `v` lists rows instead of tiles: name,
  status, version, who changed it and when.
- **Open it**: `↵` (or a double-click) opens a local working copy in the studio. Edit it as
  any file; `w` saves that copy on this computer, even when offline. The document's save state
  opens its local path and the workspace version it came from. **Make a local copy (.ctd)…**
  opens an independent copy without that link.
- **Publish a version**: in **↓ export**, choose **LottieFiles** and **Publish: new version**,
  then **Upload new version**. The bottom line says where it went with
  **open ↗** at its end, the file on the web. If someone published a newer version, the upload
  stops and says who published it; **Upload over vN** then puts yours on top (theirs stays in
  the file's versions), or upload yours as a new asset. Saving the source does not
  publish, and publishing does not save the source or move its local file.
- **Upload a new asset**: choose **LottieFiles** and **Upload new asset…** in the export panel.
  `⌘⇧S` (`⌃⇧S` off the Mac), or `u` in the view, also opens the upload dialog for the selected
  export format: its name on top (typed over, as it starts selected), and under it the workspace
  and its projects, each opening onto its folders. `↓` goes from the name to the places, where `↑` `↓` pick one (a letter jumps to
  the one called so), `→` opens it and `←` closes it, and `[` `]` change workspace; or click.
  `↵` uploads it as a new asset, `esc` doesn't. It opens where the last one went (else on the
  workspace's Drafts; from the view, on the place shown). The local document's name and save
  state stay as they were. A file of your own remembers this asset between runs; a copy opened
  from LottieFiles stays linked to the file it came from, and remembers this asset until you quit.
  The export panel can publish the next version of this asset, or switch back to **Local drive**.
  `n` in the view makes a folder (where the workspace's plan allows folders).
- **The rest**: `o` opens the file's page on lottiefiles.com, `c` opens it in Creator (where a
  Creator file opens too), `y` copies its link, `d` downloads it into the working folder, `g`
  shows the tiles of files without a background of their own on dark or light, `r` asks
  LottieFiles again.

LottieFiles takes .lottie. Other export formats need **Local drive**.
Exports that still refer to local media ask for it to be embedded before uploading.
Uploads follow the export panel's **Text** choice: **Glyphs** leaves whole font files out;
**Glyphs + fonts** keeps them for editing elsewhere. Players draw the carried letters either
way. Typing new letters in a Glyphs export needs the font installed in the editor. A dotLottie
includes its state machines, themes, background, images, sounds and clips; notes on the stage
and a template or style's recipe stay on this computer. Version history records these exported files, not an
automatically synced source document.

What you open is kept as a copy of its own, linked to its workspace file: in
`~/.config/motion/lottiefiles/files`, and in RECENT on the left by the name it has on LottieFiles.
What the view showed is kept too (in the computer's cache folder), so it opens at once next time
while it asks LottieFiles again; a tile's file downloads once per version.

From the command line, places on LottieFiles are named like paths: `lf:` then the workspace, the
project, its folders and a file (`lf:acme/website/hero/intro`), whatever their case and
punctuation, the start of a name being enough; `@6` after a file is its sixth version. Its links
work too (a file's page on lottiefiles.com, Creator's link to it).

```
creator-tui login                                  # LottieFiles (and the Creator MCP)
creator-tui whoami                                 # who, and your workspaces
creator-tui ls                                     # your workspaces, as lf: paths
creator-tui ls lf:acme/website                     # a project's folders and files (--json too)
creator-tui ls lf:acme/website/intro               # a file's versions
creator-tui lf:acme/website/intro                  # open a working copy: w saves locally
creator-tui pull lf:acme/website/intro -o public/intro.lottie
creator-tui push public/intro.lottie               # a new version of the file it was pulled from
creator-tui push sting.lottie lf:acme/website      # a new file in a project (or a folder)
```

`pull` links the file it writes to its workspace file, wherever you put it (a repo too), so
`push` publishes a new version of the right one, and refuses when someone
saved a newer one since (`--force` saves yours on top). It writes the file as its name says
(a document, `intro.ctd`, unless `-o` names another kind: a `.lottie` pulled into `intro.json`
is Lottie JSON there), and doesn't write over a file that's
there already unless it's the same one, unchanged (`pull --force` does). `LOTTIEFILES_TOKEN`
signs in without the browser (a script, CI).

`push` sends the document as it is, with its fonts, so whoever pulls it next can type in it;
an export to LottieFiles from the panel leaves them out unless **Glyphs + fonts** is chosen.

| | |
|---|---|
| `⇥` `⇧⇥` · `[` `]` | the next place on the left, the one before · the next workspace, the one before |
| arrows (`h` `j` `k` `l`) · `↵` · `⌫` | move (in rows, `←` `→` back out and in) · open (a folder, or the file in the studio) · back |
| `/` · `v` · `r` · `g` | search the workspace · tiles or rows · ask again · change the preview background for files without one |
| `u` · `n` | upload an export here (the destination dialog) · a new folder |
| `o` · `c` · `y` · `d` | its page · in Creator · copy its link · download it |
| `esc` · `⌃L` | back to the studio |
| `⌃O` | the agents |

See [Command line](https://terminal.lottiefiles.com/docs/cli.md#accounts-and-lottiefiles) for every `ls`, `pull` and `push` option,
including JSON output and forced replacement. [Troubleshooting](https://terminal.lottiefiles.com/docs/troubleshooting.md) covers
the common export and publication messages.

## CDN links

A CDN link serves one version of an animation from lottie.host for websites and apps.
**CDN link…** opens its window: from ⌘P, from Export, with `e` on a file in ⌃L; or run
`creator-tui cdn FILE`. A local animation needs an upload first: the window opens the upload
dialog and comes back with the link on. Copy the link (`y`, `o` for the optimized one) or its
embed code. The link serves that version until you move it: `v` serves the newest version,
`u` uploads your edits and serves them. Press `x` twice to turn links off: they stop loading
everywhere they're used. Optimized .lottie links need a paid plan. The window shows how much
smaller the optimized link is, and this month's CDN traffic against your plan's.

For the document in front, PLAYS picks the state machine (`s`) and theme (`t`) the embed code
plays; the links a state machine opens are allowed in the code, and listed. `←`/`→` pick the
embed code (HTML, React, iOS, Android, Player page), `c` copies it, `↑`/`↓` scroll.