Not a picture on a canvas, and not a generic redraw.

Most ways of getting a drawing into Excalidraw end in one of two places. Either the image is dropped onto the canvas as a single locked picture you can annotate but never edit, or a converter re-vectorises it into tidy standard shapes that no longer look like the thing you drew.

SketchAlchemy reads the sketch the way a person would: this is a box, this label belongs to it, this arrow connects those two. It then rebuilds it as native Excalidraw elements in the same positions, sizes and colours. Handwriting becomes typed text, so you can search it and fix a word without redrawing anything. Small drawings that aren't shapes, such as a logo or a doodle, come back as embedded image crops rather than being dropped.

Conversion is AI-driven, so read the result before you rely on it (see the accuracy note). Anything it gets wrong is an ordinary Excalidraw object you can correct in seconds.

How it works

Upload or paste the image. No cropping or clean-up needed.
Choose Convert for clean captures, or Sanitize + Convert for photos taken at an angle or in poor light.
Preview the scene and regenerate if something is off.
Download .excalidraw or .excalidraw.md and keep editing.

What goes in, what comes out.

In: PNG, JPG or WebP, HEIC photos straight from an iPhone (converted in your browser before upload), or a screenshot pasted from the clipboard. Whiteboard photos, paper scans, iPad and reMarkable exports, or a diagram someone sent you as an image all work.

Out: a .excalidraw file for excalidraw.com or any editor that opens Excalidraw files, an .excalidraw.md file for Obsidian's Excalidraw plugin, and, if you run Sanitize, a clean 2K PNG for slides and documents. Scenes can be baked for a light or a dark theme.

Which workflow: use Convert when the capture is already clean, such as a tablet export, a scan or a screenshot. It is a single pass and costs about $0.25. Use Sanitize + Convert for real-world photos: it first straightens the shot, removes shadows and background and turns handwriting into typed text, then builds the scene from that cleaned image. It costs about $1.00 and is the usual choice for whiteboards and notebook pages.

It is built for drawn structure: flowcharts, architecture sketches, UML, mind maps, wireframes and annotated notes. A photo of a printed page or a picture without a drawn diagram in it is not what it is for.

Real conversions

Three images, three editable scenes.

Each pair is a real input and a render of the Excalidraw scene that came back, unedited.

Hand-drawn UML 4+1 architecture views overview in colour markers, with icons and grouped diagram types — Original

The same UML overview as an Excalidraw scene with typed labels, coloured boxes and connectors — Editable in Excalidraw

A colour UML overview: icons, groupings and colours carried over.

Hand-drawn UML activity diagram for order processing on paper, with branches and swimlane bars — Original

The same activity diagram rebuilt in Excalidraw with typed steps, decision labels and arrows — Editable in Excalidraw

A paper activity diagram: decision branches read as real connections.

Densely handwritten study notes about skill trees, with red boxes, highlights and small diagrams — Original

The same notes as an Excalidraw scene: typed text in the original positions, boxes and highlights kept — Editable in Excalidraw

Dense handwritten notes: text, boxes and highlights kept in place.

Questions

Before you upload.

How accurate is the conversion?

It is tuned for faithfulness to your layout, but it is AI: on a faint or very dense capture it can misread a word or merge two shapes. Everything comes back editable, so fixes take seconds. More in the accuracy note.

Can I open the result in excalidraw.com?

Yes. Download the .excalidraw file and open it from excalidraw.com's menu, or drag it onto the canvas.

Is it free to try?

New accounts get $3.00 of credit with no card. A single pass costs about $0.25, a full Sanitize + Convert about $1.00. See pricing.

What happens to my images?

Images are processed in Google Cloud and converted by Google's Gemini models. Details are in the Privacy Notice.

Turn any sketch or image into an editable Excalidraw scene.