Mobile phones have become an essential part of our day-to-day lives. So much so that many people seek to customize and protect their phones with a personalized case. After all, there’s nothing worse than dropping your caseless phone and watching the screen shatter. With the popularity of desktop 3D printers, people are creating all kinds of interesting things, including phone cases.
In this article, we’ll take a look at some of the best sources for downloading phone case models to 3D print. We recommend printing many of these cases with a flexible filament for a better fit and to avoid scratching your phone.
If you don’t want to deal with the hassle of printing a case yourself, check out Craftcloud by All3DP. Simply upload your model, select a material, and you’ll have your perfect 3D printed case in no time!
Now, let’s get to the list!
What to Look For
There are countless phone case models available around the internet. While compiling this list, we found dozens of different sources for quality models. To determine the best of the best, we developed the following criteria:
- Wide range: Not only did we consider the amount of phone case models available, but there should also be a variety of types of phones supported. After all, not all cameras or chargers are set the same way.
- High-quality: The models should be high quality and easily printable (although specific filament choices might mean different needs, but that’s another matter).
- Customizable: Bonus points are given to sites that include models that can be easily customized, be it to add your initials or to change parts of the design.
- Well-organized: All the sites should be well organized, with either tags making it easy to access similar designs or useful categories and a good search function.
- Value for money: While some of the sites include paid models, they should also offer at least a few free models.
Not every source on this list ticks all of these boxes, but they all stand out in one way or another, whether it’s a huge range of free models or some impressively high-quality options. So now that we know what we’re looking for, let’s get onto the list!
Thingiverse
With millions of users, Thingiverse is one of the largest model repositories on the internet. In fact, searching for “phone case” yields over 7,000 different models! If you have a less-common phone model or are searching for some truly eccentric designs, Thingiverse is the source for you.
Thingiverse is also organized in a way that makes it easy to find the perfect model. You can search for models tagged with “phone case”, although note that different users may spell it together or separate, so browsing through the tags and checking out your specific phone model might be worth it. You can also sort your results by the number of likes a design has received and filter them by the number of makes a model has or by whether or not the model is customizable.
In addition to its wide variety of models, another benefit of Thingiverse is its focus on 3D printing. Unlike some of the other sources on this list, the vast majority of models on Thingiverse are designed to be 3D printed. There are certainly some outliers, but most of the models on the site should be sliced and printed without error.
All of the models on Thingiverse are free to download. Some are even customizable with Thingiverse’s Customizer App, which allows you to easily modify existing designs.
- Amount: ~7,000
- Quality: Medium-high
- Customizability: Medium
- Organization: Excellent
- Pricing: Free
Cults
Cults is another website with a variety of 3D models. With over 2,000 search results for the term “phone case,” there are plenty of quality models to choose from. If you’re looking for a unique phone case, Cults might be just the place!
Most of the models on Cults are optimized for 3D printing. They are also well organized, and you can filter by free, safe, and featured models while searching. However, there are also several CAD mockups and other files that aren’t necessarily designed to be 3D printed. As such, we recommend only trying models with pictures of the final result in the item description.
Luckily, most of the models on Cults are free! Even if you download a broken model, there are plenty of others on the site to choose from. However, there are no native customization features on the site, so you may have to look elsewhere if you don’t find the perfect model.
- Amount: ~2,000
- Quality: Medium
- Customizability: None
- Organization: Good
- Pricing: Free or paid designs at $2-$15
Printables
Popular with 3D printing enthusiasts, Printables offers a large collection of printable 3D models. You can find a case on this website for practically any phone brand, ranging from Nokia to the iPhone 14. Most makers recommend using PLA filament, although some suggest PETG for better durability.
The search filter is arguably the best feature. In addition to some basic parameters like date and license type, it allows you to delve into more detailed search parameters such as printer type, file type (e.g. G-code), nozzle diameter, printing time, print weight, filament type, and even consumed resin for resin prints. It also allows you to sort search results based on relevance, popularity, date, rating, and makes.
Another great feature of Printables is that all the phone case files are totally free to download and print. However, the Creative Commons (CC) licenses of attribution and non-commercial use apply to these models, and you’re only allowed to remix them. Quite a few models are also customizable to meet your specific needs, and you can open and edit them in PrusaSlicer, Prusa’s (you guessed it) slicer.
- Amount: ~1,000
- Quality: Low to high
- Organization: Excellent
- Customizability: High
- Pricing: Free
MyMiniFactory
MyMiniFactory is another tried-and-true repository for quality 3D models. It offers a decent selection of phone case models, with a search for “phone case” yielding around 200 different models. Some of these models hold universal appeal, while others (such as an “I am Groot” phone case) are a little more niche.
MyMiniFactory is organized in a way that makes it easy to find the best case for your phone. You can search for models in a variety of different categories, as well as filter by price, popularity, and views. Much like Thingiverse, many of these models are designed to be 3D printed. However, we recommend checking the comments and community prints section of a design before downloading. If the model has lots of positive comments and successful prints, you’ll likely find success as well!
The majority of the phone case models on MyMiniFactory are free to download, while some are offered as premium models, typically costing between $2 and $8 to download. However, we didn’t find the premium phone cases to be of noticeably better quality than the free cases. Moreover, while some models on the site are customizable, we didn’t find any phone case models that were compatible with this feature.
- Amount: ~200
- Quality: Medium-high
- Customizability: Low
- Organization: Excellent
- Pricing: Free or premium designs at ~$4
CGTrader
CGTrader offers 3D models for a variety of purposes. Unlike the previous repositories, many of the models on CGTrader are targeted toward engineers and designers rather than 3D printing beginners. As such, you’ll likely find CAD mockups and MAX files in addition to standard STL files, as you search. Fortunately, CGTrader is well organized, allowing you to search by file format, polygon count, and price.
Seeing as it’s largely aimed at designers, the selection of 3D printable models on CGTrader is somewhat smaller than it first appears. An initial search for “phone case” yields almost 4,000 results, yet we estimate that less than 500 of these models are easily printable. However, CGTrader may be a valuable resource if you’re working with a program capable of transforming design files (such as MAX) into 3D printable files (STL).
The models on CGTrader vary widely in price. The typical range for a phone case model is $3-$30, but we’ve found models as expensive as $100.
- Amount: ~500
- Quality: High
- Customizability: Low (design experience required)
- Organization: Satisfactory
- Pricing: Typically $3-$30
GrabCAD
Boasting over 5,500,000 CAD files, GrabCAD is another of the largest repositories for 3D models on the internet. Naturally, that makes it a great source for 3D printable phone case files. However, much like with CGTrader, many of the files on GrabCAD are aimed at engineers rather than those getting started with 3D printing.
Admittedly, such a focus on engineers limits the number of 3D printable files on GrabCAD. In fact, we found less than 100 printable phone case models on the site. However, many models are offered in multiple formats, such as STEP. This means that they are easily customizable with adequate design software knowledge. STEP files can also be converted to STLs for an easier 3D printing experience.
One major benefit of GrabCAD is that all of the files are free! Simply sign up for a GrabCAD Community account and start downloading.
- Amount: ~400
- Quality: Medium-high
- Customizability: Low (design experience required)
- Organization: Satisfactory
- Pricing: Free
TurboSquid
The 3D printable phone cases on TurboSquid are available in STL and OBJ formats. These cases are compatible with Samsung Galaxy, iPhone, and Huawei phones, and some of them are certified by CheckMate Pro, which ensures they meet the highest standards of the 3D modeling industry. Another good aspect of this website is that it offers a simple and smooth return policy for faulty or non-matching cases.
Overall, the website is well organized and easy to navigate. You can find what you’re looking for with the search bar, hassle free. Additionally, you can filter your search models based on parameters such as price, format, CheckMate Pro certification, or number of polygons in the models.
However, there are some downsides. There are no free models are available and the features are fixed, meaning that they’re not as customizable as other offerings.
- Amount: ~50
- Quality: Medium with few high-quality cases
- Organization: Excellent
- Customizability: None
- Pricing: Typically $10-$20, but as low as $1 and as high as $79
Pinshape
Pinshape offers cases in STL formats with various designs, including spiders, gears, honeycomb grids, and flowers. Their cases are compatible with iPhone, Google Pixel, Sony Xperia, Nexus 6, and a few other brands. Additionally, most of them are recommended for printing with FDM 3D printers. The site is filled with glowing reviews from users happy with their new phone cases.
You can filter the search results based on relevancy, trend, popularity, price, and date. However, you can’t filter your results with more specific parameters, like file format or nozzle diameter.
This website offers an equal amount of free and paid models, and the paid ones are typically quite cheap. Unfortunately, you can’t customize your cases on Pinshape. You should also take their Creative Commons (CC) licenses of attribution and non-commercial use into account, as you can’t use these cases for commercial purposes.
- Amount: ~200
- Quality: Medium to high
- Organization: Good
- Customizability: None
- Pricing: Free or up to ~$20
YouMagine
YouMagine is another website with a repository of printable phone cases in STL and STEP formats. The website’s mission is to make creation, editing, and sharing 3D CAD files as easy and accessible as possible. It invites developers and 3D printing experts to collaborate.
You can easily filter your search results by targeting STL, STEP, and other formats. Additional filters provide the option to sort by relevance, printing time, date, and popularity. When checking out the site, you can see that some users have uploaded photos of their successfully printed cases. Usually, PLA filament is recommended for printing these cases with no supports.
A great benefit of this website is that all the phone case models are absolutely free, and there are many customizable designs with the possibility of editing in 3D Slash to fit your specific desires. Creative Commons (CC) licenses of attribution apply to these models too, but unlike Pinshape, you can use them for commercial purposes.
- Amount: ~130
- Quality: Low to high
- Organization: Good
- Customizability: Medium
- Pricing: Free
Threeding
The uniquely-designed printable phone cases on Threeding are all in STL format and often target older models of iPhone like the 4, 5, and 6. The models are watertight with a focus on solid construction. If you still haven’t upgraded your old iPhone or you keep it around for other projects, we recommend searching for a case on Threeding.
Threeding is user-friendly, and its search filters allow you to specify your target price range (from free to $1,000), file format, and license type. Further, it can sort out the results based on relevance, date, and price.
Many of the models are priced at $5, and the website also allows some customizability of its designs. However, the downside is that most of its case models are rather old, dating back to 2014 and 2016, and there’s not much variety. But it’s still worth a look.
- Amount: ~30
- Quality: Low to medium
- Organization: Good
- Customizability: Low
- Pricing: $5-$25
License: The text of "3D Printed Phone Case: The Best Sites of 2023" by All3DP is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.