MagicBrief Shut Down: What to Do Now and Alternatives

If you used MagicBrief to research competitor ads and keep a swipe file, you have probably already noticed it is gone. This post sets out what happened, what you can still do, and the options we know of, including ours.

We build a competing product, so keep that in mind as you read. We have tried to be fair, and we have only included claims we could check on the companies' own pages.

What happened to MagicBrief?

Here is what the record shows.

June 2025. Canva announced it was acquiring MagicBrief, a Sydney-based company. Coverage at the time said MagicBrief would operate as an independent brand and its team of about ten would join Canva.
2026. MagicBrief's own site says the platform closed on 31 July 2026 at 8 PM Eastern, after which it is no longer accessible. The page says the team has moved to Canva.
Billing. MagicBrief's FAQ says billing was cancelled when the shutdown was announced, so customers were not charged again, and that full access continued until closing.
The replacement. Canva Grow, described on MagicBrief's site as a new end-to-end marketing workflow for creating, launching and analysing ads in Canva. The FAQ calls it a "net-new product" and says it is not a direct port of MagicBrief. It says Canva Grow supports Meta and TikTok for publishing and analytics.

The FAQ also described a Canva offer for MagicBrief customers: six months of Canva Business free. Promo codes had to be redeemed by 30 September 2026, so that window has closed. If you claimed one, check it is attached to the account you want.

We could not confirm from MagicBrief's pages whether Canva Grow includes competitor ad research like MagicBrief's Inspire section did. If that is the part you used most, check it before you plan around it.

What about your saved data?

This is the awkward part. According to the FAQ, before closing:

Insights reports could be exported as CSV, but only Overview reports. Comparison and Co-pilot reports could not be exported.
Inspire collections, where people saved third-party ads, had no bulk export. Users had to record anything they wanted to keep by hand.
Meta and TikTok ad data was never stored by MagicBrief, so it is unaffected.

If you exported nothing, you cannot get back in now. The FAQ lists [email protected] for questions about data, though when we loaded the page the contact link pointed to a Canva address, so try both if you write. We cannot tell you whether support can recover anything.

Before you give up, check the places a swipe file leaks into:

Slack or Teams channels where you shared ads
Shared links in email
Screenshots on your laptop and phone
Docs or Notion pages where you pasted references
Browser history, if you opened ads from the Ad Library

How do you rebuild a swipe file?

The good news: most of what a swipe file contains is public. The ads came from the Meta Ad Library, and for ads that are still running, they are still there.

List the brands you saved from. Write down your 10 to 20 most important competitors and adjacent brands. You do not need every ad. You need the brands.
Re-find their active ads. Open the Ad Library at facebook.com/ads/library, pick your country, search each brand and choose the right Page. Our step-by-step guide covers it.
Accept what is gone. For ordinary commercial ads, the library shows only what is active. Ads about social issues, elections or politics stay for 7 years, and ads delivered in the EU stay for one year after their last impression. If a saved ad has stopped, it is likely not coming back. Check the other places above for a screenshot.
Sort by run time. The ads still running after months are the ones worth saving first. See how to find the longest-running ads.
Save with context. For each ad, record the Library ID, the start date, the date you looked, the main message, the offer and the landing page. A swipe file without dates is a folder of pictures.
Organize by question. Do not make a folder called "Cool ads." Make boards like "What is the category's main promise?" or "Offers in Q4."
Keep the media. A common reason swipe files break is that the saved link goes dead when the ad stops. Whatever tool you pick, check whether it stores the image or video, not just a link.

What are the alternatives?

Here is a plain list of the options we know about. For each, we only say what the company's own site says.

Canva Grow. The official successor. By MagicBrief's account, it covers creating, launching and analysing ads inside Canva for Meta and TikTok, with usage limits by plan. If you already live in Canva, it is the obvious one to try. As above, check whether it covers competitor research.

Foreplay. Its site describes a creative research and production platform that saves ads from ad libraries, has a searchable ad database, tracks competitor ads, analyzes creative performance and helps teams build briefs. It offers a 7-day free trial. We have a comparison with Foreplay.

Atria. Its site describes an AI creative platform for Meta ads that analyzes your own ad data to surface winning personas, hooks and messages, builds creative briefs, and can batch-upload and launch ads. It lists free credits and says no card is required.

Motion. Its site describes a creative analytics platform for your own ad accounts across Meta, TikTok, YouTube and LinkedIn, which also tracks competitors' ads. It offers a free trial with no card.

The Meta Ad Library and a spreadsheet. Free, public, and good enough for a handful of competitors. It keeps nothing for you and does not group copies, so you carry that work. See our guide to the Meta Ad Library.

Seercraft. Ours. Here is what it does and does not do.

Where Seercraft fits

Seercraft tracks the brands you compete with in the public Meta Ad Library, across Facebook, Instagram, Messenger and Audience Network. It checks them daily and keeps history after ads stop, which is the problem that hurts most when a swipe file tool disappears.

Ideas, not duplicates. Copies of one creative are grouped into one idea with a version count.
Seer, the AI analyst. It writes a cited read of each brand and answers questions in the app (⌘J). Every claim links to the ads behind it, and inferences are labelled.
This week. A weekly page with 3 tests to run next for your brand.
Briefs. Creative briefs are auto-filled from a test or a board.
Boards that keep the media. Your swipe file does not break when the original ad is turned off.
Discover. Search the library sorted by how long ads have run.

What it does not do, so you can rule it out quickly:

Seercraft covers Meta only today. MagicBrief supported TikTok, and so does Canva Grow. TikTok, Google and LinkedIn are coming for Seercraft, not here yet.
It does not show competitor spend or ROAS. Nobody outside Meta can see that for commercial ads, apart from EU reach data and political ads.
It does not analyse your own ad account yet. Comparing your ads with theirs is coming. If you need your own performance in the same tool, Motion, Atria or Canva Grow are built for that.

Every subscription includes a 7-day free trial. See our pricing page for current Starter, Pro and Agency plans. The team behind Seercraft also built the Meta Ad Library actor on Apify, which has 3,739 users and 209,903 runs, so we have spent a long time on this data. For a side-by-side with the old tool, see our MagicBrief page. Agencies that managed many client boards in MagicBrief can read the agencies page.

How to choose

Ask which job you actually did in MagicBrief.

Saving and researching competitor ads. You need a tracker that keeps history and media. That is the Foreplay and Seercraft shape.
Analyzing your own ad performance. You need a tool connected to your ad accounts. That is Motion, Atria or Canva Grow.
Both. You may end up using two tools. That is fine.

Try each on one real competitor before you commit. Add the same brand to two tools and compare what each tells you in an hour.

Sources

Add a competitor and start your free trial and start rebuilding your swipe file with ads that stay saved. Every subscription includes a 7-day free trial; see our pricing page for current plans and limits.