Script and expression manager for After Effects

They work on the layers or properties you select.

• Rigs: Overshoot, Bounce, Flicker and Wiggle. Each adds an expression to the selected properties, driven by effect controls on the layer, so you tune the motion without editing code. Read how the bounce and overshoot expressions work.
• Layers: Null & Parent, Text Box, Quick Connector and Move on Timeline.
• Alignment and order: Align Center, Align Left, Align Right and Invert Layer Order.

The built-in tools are read-only. To change one, copy its idea into a Cloud Tool of your own.

Since Flexile 0.17.0, the After Effects MCP server built into the panel gives AI apps the flexile_tool tool. With it, the AI lists, creates, edits, runs and deletes your Cloud Tools. A tool it saves appears on your Tools page straight away.

Code is checked before it is saved: an expression is parsed as JavaScript and a script is checked by After Effects. Broken code, a duplicate name or the name of a built-in tool is refused instead of saved. A prompt to try:

Write an expression tool called “Pulse” that makes Scale pulse between 100% and 110% twice per second, save it, and run it on the Logo layer.

No MCP app? Ask any chatbot for the code and paste it into a Cloud Tool, as in our guide to ChatGPT for After Effects. Setup for Claude, ChatGPT desktop and Cursor is in the AI setup guide.

Click a layer in After Effects and the Flexile panel shows its name, or “Multiple layers”, together with the extra actions that fit that layer. The same live context tells the Text, Elements and Audio pages what you are working on.

ExtendScript has no event for a selection change, so a panel that relies on it alone has to ask on a timer or wait for a click. Flexile installs a small native After Effects plugin that reports the selected layers to the panel as soon as they change. On Windows that plugin needs an administrator install. Without it, the panel checks the selection once a second.

Other ways to keep scripts and expressions one click away, with prices from each official page, checked 5 October 2026. Flexile is our own product.

• KBar3 (aescripts): customizable, shareable toolbars whose buttons run effects and presets, menu commands, extensions, expressions, scripts and shell commands. $39.99, free trial, After Effects CC 2019 and above.
• Flexile: 12 built-in tools and your own Script and Expression tools, synced to your account, tested in the panel and writable by AI apps over MCP, in a panel that also covers easing, text, transitions and audio. Free during beta, After Effects 2025 or newer.
• Quiver 2 (Workbench): applies saved expressions to your layers, with an expression library you edit from the panel. $20 on Gumroad, After Effects CC 2014 and newer.
• Expression Adder: a curated library of your favourite expressions, saved in one file you can import wherever you work. $9.99 on Gumroad.
• Animation presets (built into After Effects): save a property with its expression as an .ffx preset and apply it in other projects. Free, but the expression breaks when it refers to a layer or property the other project lacks.

What Flexile does not have: buttons for menu commands, effects or shell commands, toolbars you can share, and tools longer than 1,000 characters. Cloud Tools belong to one account and can’t be shared yet.