Thousands of Free LEGO Building Instructions!

In addition to the free LEGO magazine, which deserves a spot in the Freebie Hall of Fame at this point, did you know you can now access most LEGO instructions online? There are tons of digital building guides offered by the official LEGO company in pdf form, accessible in your browser on your computer or phone!

Free LEGO Instructions Database

The first place to start is this free LEGO instructions database where you can search and download thousands of free LEGO guides!

Their database has instructions going back to 1989 – back when I was first building LEGOs as a kid! There's all sorts of cool stuff in here and while many of the large sets have unique pieces, you can build a lot of stuff with just a random box of LEGO pieces. You can search by topic or, more easily IMHO, object. I found over 60 cool guides for “helicopter” and “boat.” There were over 250 instructions for “car” alone!

Jobs or tasks are other good searches to find new digital building manuals. “Police” returned 160 free guides for all sorts of cops & robbers toys. Meanwhile, “Fire” gave me 156 free fire-fighting builds to download. Trademarks are the last great search. “Star wars” has 503 free LEGO guides. “Potter” returned 67 wizarding toys. You get the idea.

This free database is a great option to both dig up old guides from your childhood and discover new instructions to build!

Free LEGO Creative Building Kits

If you're anything like me, you also have a box full of LEGO bricks mixed together from a variety of different sets. In that case, you might enjoy these free Creative Bundle Box instructions.

Starting in 2021, LEGO released a new website offering of LEGO® Classic Building Instructions. These are all free bundles with tons of building instructions per kit. Each kit usually has 4 to 26 guides that often have a similar themes. Click through on each of the following kits to see a full list of items and download the .pdfs or use the links below.

  • 11001 LEGO Bricks and Ideas – 4 free guides: Create a classic steam train, cozy house, cool music keyboard, cute red dinosaur or whatever toy you can imagine!
  • 11002 LEGO Basic Brick Set – 7 free guides: Meet a knight on horseback and a friendly dinosaur. Perform stunts in a cool monster truck or take to the skies in a classic propeller plane. Create a cute dog, bird in a birdhouse or whatever you can imagine with these bright and colorful LEGO bricks, wheels and eyes!
  • 11003 LEGO Bricks and Eyes – 9 free guides: Have fun creating all kinds of characters with all sorts of eyes, from a sleepy sheep with tightly closed eyes to a goggle-eyed pumpkin or a cute pink rabbit with spinnable eyes!
  • 11005 LEGO Creative Fun – 10 free guides: Create all kinds of fun toys, from a spin top to a cute dog or a friendly lion. Then get to work on an old-fashioned typewriter, skim over the waves aboard a bright pink water scooter or head for the skies in a vintage biplane—the choice is yours!
  • 10717 LEGO Bricks Bricks Bricks – 10 free guides: Set sail on a mighty galleon to an ancient castle where a frog prince resides. Create a beautiful country house, a gramophone with a spinning turntable, a classic red telephone or a cute elephant with its baby—the possibilities are endless!
  • 10713 LEGO Creative Suitcase – 10 free guides: Have fun creating cute creatures, cool cars, cozy houses and whatever else you can imagine.
  • 10712 LEGO Bricks and Gears – 10 free guides: Create a bright and colorful world of moving models and fun functions with these exciting guides. Build a helicopter with spinning rotor, a carousel, a swinging monkey, bright sunflowers that turn their heads or a funny owl with moving eyes.
  • 10696 LEGO Medium Creative Brick Box – 24 free guides: With a mad mix of bricks, windows, eyes and wheels, this LEGO Classic set is bursting with creative possibilities. From a space shuttle to a windmill, a toaster to a tiger, these awesome quick-build models are a great way to get started.
  • 10698 LEGO Large Creative Brick Box – 26 free guides: Download free building instructions and celebrate Christmas and other public holidays with buildable LEGO® toys! And that’s not all, there’s a camera, teddy bear, excavator, castle, locomotive… enough quick-build LEGO creativity to keep kids busy all year long!
  • 10692 LEGO Creative Bricks – 11 free guides: Dig into this selection of LEGO bricks and let your imagination run away with you! The building possibilities are endless, with classic bricks in 29 different colors and special pieces including doors, windows, wheels, eyes and propellers. And if you don’t know where to start, you can find instructions with some ideas to get you going. This is an ideal set to help budding builders of all ages get creative, and would complement any existing LEGO collection.
  • 10693 LEGO Creative Supplement – 10 free guides: Give budding LEGO builders a great start with these awesome quick-build LEGO toys. There’s a dinosaur toy, robot, shark, pirate ship, jet airplane, a rocket… Simply download the free building instructions and watch kids’ imaginations soar!
  • 10694 LEGO Creative Supplement Bright – 10 free guides: From butterflies and flowers to guitars and cakes, this set of build guides are designed for builders of all ages.
  • 10703 LEGO Creative Builder Box – 6 free guides: Create beautiful houses, exciting shops, cozy cafés, ornamental pagodas, magical castles and more.
  • 10704 LEGO Creative Box – 9 free guides: Build a world of cars, boats, buildings and creatures.
  • 10706 LEGO Blue Creativity Box – 3 free guides
  • 10707 LEGO Red Creativity Box – 3 free guides.
  • 10708 LEGO Green Creativity Box – 3 free guides.
  • 10709 LEGO Orange Creativity Box – 3 free guides.

I don't know how long these free guides will last, so I would download the .pdfs today! That way if they ever delete these digital manuals, you'll still have access to them again in your own personal library.

Free LEGO Mini Build Instructions

From 2008-2020, LEGO offered monthly free mini build instructions that are super easy to build with generic LEGO piece. Somebody collected over 12 years worth of these free guides and you can view & download them all here! With only a handful of generic pieces, you'll learn how to build a frog, truck, airplane, or something similar.

All of these instructions are trademarks of the LEGO® group.

Free LEGO Instructions App

Finally, LEGO has a new app called Brickit that scans your pile of LEGO pieces and tells you what to build! This is the future my 8 year old self always dreamed up.

Hopefully with these free resources, you can put your old collection of LEGOs back to good use and enjoy many more years of fun with them.

I'll admit, I still have a box or two of LEGOs still lying around! I can't wait to build some of these old school LEGO designs, even if the colors might be slightly off 😀 If this sounds fun to you or your kids, be sure to check out all the free LEGO guides.

About the Author: Goob

I'm a nationally renowned freebie finder & sample vetter, which I never imagined I'd be doing while getting my Bachelor's Degree in History almost 20 years ago. In my spare time, I enjoy launching my own space program and disproving the Coriolis effect.