How to Find It

• Windows: ≡ Menu -> Link Cartridge

When to Use it

If you purchase a physical cartridge, you’ll want to link it to your account.

Description

Physical cartridges used to be the only way to have images to cut. They fit in a slot on the machine and have all the images stored on the cartridge. The physical cartridge will always work in a machine with a cartridge slot, regardless of whether it is linked to an account or not. Physical cartridges have been phased out. You can find them on the secondary market (eBay, for example), and unless they are damaged, they will work in your machine with a cartridge slot (the Maker does not have a slot).

There are some drawbacks to cartridges, in that you can only use one physical cartridge at a time. It’s impossible to use images from two cartridges in the same project, since there is only one slot.

However, Cricut has given us the ability to add a cartridge to our account, so that we can use all of the ones we own in Design Space. This gives us the ability to images from any (or every!) cartridge in a project. The catch is that each cartridge can be linked to one and only one account. Once it’s linked, the physical cartridge can still be used as a physical cartridge, but it cannot be unlinked and transferred to another account. Buyer beware: many of those used cartridges on eBay or in garage sales might have already been linked to an account. If you acquire some second-hand cartridges, it’s worth trying to link them, but be prepared that it probably already has been linked.

The Inspired Squirrel doesn’t have access to any physical cartridges, so I can’t give first-hand information. Well, at least, not yet. My mother-in-law has a large collection, and next time I’m with her, I’ll figure out how all this works and document it here.

There are new “cartridges” that are digital. They look like gift cards if you buy them in the store or get them as a gift. You’d come here to link them to your account. Again, you can link this to only one account. There’s no sharing with your friends and family (and sharing an account is against the licensing agreement).