SketchUp Hacks for Interior Designers: Save Hours on Every Project
If you’re an interior designer using SketchUp, you know how much time the software can save when done right—or how it can eat up hours when done inefficiently. In this post, we’ll share powerful hacks to optimize your workflow and make SketchUp your ultimate time-saving ally.
1. Use Components Cleverly
Components are one of SketchUp’s secret weapons. Unlike groups, components update across your entire model whenever you make changes. This means you can save hours when modifying repeated objects like furniture, fixtures, or lighting. Need to adjust chair dimensions? Update one, and every instance adjusts instantly!
💡 Pro Tip: Always turn frequently reused elements into components. Keep in mind components can exist within components too. Say you’re designing a restaurant. You can have a chair as a component, a table as a component, and an arrangment of one of those tables and 4 of those chairs as another component. This can make it easy to update finishes, swap choices, etc. even if you have dozens of the same model across a project. Name them clearly to keep your model organized and easy to navigate.
2. Set Up Scenes Regularly
Scenes are your best friend for presenting designs and navigating large models. By setting up scenes for floor plans, elevations, and specific views, you ensure consistent angles and avoid wasting time finding the perfect view manually.
💡 Pro Tip: Save your scenes like plan views to a template for new projects so you can hit the ground running every time.
3. Use Tags Wisely
Tags (formerly layers) are key to managing complexity in your SketchUp models. Assign tags to organize your model visually and hide or isolate elements easily. For example, you can use tags for furniture, walls, or lighting to keep things tidy. You can also control things like phases via tags, such as existing items, phase 1 items, and so on…
💡 Pro Tip: Utilise tags with scenes to switch between different design phases or visualization setups in seconds.
4. Try the Curic Stretch Extension
Want to resize objects without distortion? The Curic Stretch extension is a game-changer if you’re doing a lot of resizing of things (e.g. lots of different window widths, but need to maintain the same frame profile thorughout). The Curic Stretch Extension allows you to stretch components and groups in ways the native tools can’t handle, saving you hours on custom designs. It costs $15 (at the time of this blog pos), but it definitely saves you so much time for resizing items precisely.
💡 Pro Tip: Use this extension to adjust cabinetry, shelving, or other modular elements to fit perfectly in your model without manipulating the elements within the model’s construction, e.g. thickness of side panels.
5. Leverage Templates for Fast Startups
Creating a new project from scratch can be tedious, but SketchUp templates can save the day. Set up a base template with default tags, scenes, styles, and even frequently used components to eliminate repetitive setup work.
💡 Pro Tip: Include standard placeholder furniture, cabinetry, or fixture libraries in your template to accelerate your design process. You might have a kitchen template or residential template or restaurant template. Within those, you can have your standard placeholders to help make it easier to workout space planning within these projects.
6. Use the Outliner for Easy Navigation
The Outliner tool lets you see a hierarchical view of all components and groups in your model. It’s invaluable for navigating complex models, hiding or isolating specific elements, and ensuring everything is organized.
💡 Pro Tip: Name your groups and components like a human (don’t be clever with codes or numbers) to make the Outliner a practical tool instead of a cluttered list.
7. Master Keyboard Shortcuts
SketchUp’s interface is user-friendly, but clicking around menus and tool buttons can still slow you down. Memorize essential keyboard shortcuts to streamline your workflow.
💡 Pro Tip: Customize your shortcuts for the tools or actions that you use most!
8. Optimize Your Model Size with Cleanup Extensions
Large SketchUp files can slow down performance, especially in detailed interior designs. Use extensions like CleanUp³ (free) to remove unnecessary edges, duplicate components, or stray lines to keep your model lean and efficient.

9. Explore Live Components for Flexibility
Live components are configurable elements in SketchUp that can be customized with ease. They’re particularly useful for furniture, cabinetry, or fixtures where different configurations are required.
💡 Pro Tip: When you go to the 3D Warehouse filter for Live Components to see what’s available. (Dynamic components are also configurable, but they’re considered an older version of Live Components – the editing of dynamic components can be a bit clunky by comparison).
10. Use the Instructor Window to remind you of how tools work
Particularly for tools you use infrequently, it can be a bit challenging to remember exactly what order you’re supposed to click and where. So to quickly remind yourself about how a tool works, open the instructor window. If all you need is a refresher, the instructor window is great because you can watch and read while you’re using the tool.
Start Saving Time with SketchUp Today
Incorporate these hacks into your workflow, and you’ll notice how much smoother your projects run. Mastering tools like components, tags, and extensions like Curic Stretch and Cleanupwill streamline your work and give you more time to focus on creative design.
Ready to take your SketchUp skills to the next level?
Explore my SketchUp for Interior Designers Course and learn how to make SketchUp an indispensable tool in your interior design projects.