Left and Right constraint disabled when min/max width are set

Hi @jen_huh, Thanks for reaching out and describing the issue you’re encountering.

Are you noticing this behavior when you apply Constraints to an Auto layout frame itself?
I did some testing on my side and observed the following:

1. Apply auto layout to a frame
2. Add either max or min width for the frame, then “left and right” and “Scaled” Constrains options grayed.
3. Add either max or min height for the frame, “Top and bottom” and “Scaled” Constrains options grayed out.

This consistency makes me think this may be the intended behavior, but I have yet to find any documentation explaining why this happens.

I’ll reach out internally to see if this is a bug or feature limitation. We’ll keep you updated with any new information I find.

If I’ve missed anything, please let us know. Additionally, if anyone in our community has further insights regarding this, please jump in!

Thanks,

Hey, this happened to me as well when I was trying to design a responsive dashboard, creating a container that scales with the size of the frame while also maintaining a minimum height.

I’d love for this to get fixed.

Hello there, Thank you for reaching out.

After looking into this internally, we have found that this is the intended behavior.
I have included this post in our report to ensure it receives attention, but please be aware that it may take some time before a fix is implemented.

Thank you for your assistance and I appreciate you bringing this to our attention.

this is the intended behavior

but

it may take some time before a fix

so is it planned to be adjusted? Currently, I feel forced to put the autolayout everywhere. I love aligning with actual dev structure implementation but sometimes it doesn’t bring anything into the design or implementation process but unnecessarily lengthens and overengineer a design process.
Let’s make it easier and optimized! 🙂

Hi there,

I have the same problem, I don’t see how it is the intended behavior. I have a vertical nav bar, with a min-height and I want it to be constrained to top and bottom, but the option is disabled. It worked minutes before and it work on my horizontal header (with left and right) which have the same type of properties ?

Hey @Amadeusz_Wasik Thank you so much for getting in touch with us.

I’ve gone ahead and added your comment to our internal report to help bring more attention to this particular request. While I can’t promise an immediate change, your feedback is important for us!

Hi @Benjamin_Margoux1, could you please check the position of scroll behavior of each object in question?

If you’ve enabled the “Fixed” position (Fix position when scrolling), you’ll notice that the options for “Top & Bottom”, “Left & Right”, and “Scale” become disabled (grayed out).
I understand it may not be ideal for you, but this is the intended behavior for now.

However, our engineering team aware that our community wants more flexibility and are actively looking at how we can improve this functionality.

If that’s not the case, I suggest you reach out to our support team. They can take a closer look at your file here: https://help.figma.com/hc/en-us/requests/new?ticket_form_id=360001744374
When reaching out, please remember to include the following details:

• Your Figma account email
• Recording or Screenshots of the issue, capturing the full Figma screen with the left and right-hand panels
• The URLs of the affected file, add support-share@figma.com as an editor of those files(this will not affect your billing)

Thank you for your assistance and understanding!

+1 on this, although it kind of makes sense I think constraints should be available within sizes allowed by the min and max width

Any updates on this? Find it funny that left right constraint is disabled once apply a min and max width

Yeah, ran into this too — it’s not a bug, it’s just how Figma handles constraint logic. When you set both min/max width, Figma can’t apply both left & right constraints simultaneously because it would conflict with the fixed range you just defined. So it disables them to avoid layout ambiguity.

At Phonexa, we dealt with this when building responsive components in our internal dashboard. The workaround we found was using “center” constraint + fixed width for predictable scaling, or switching to auto layout where possible — gives more flexibility for responsiveness without constraint collisions.

Hope that helps!

But why is this intended behavior? I genuinely can't think of a single reason why blocking functionality like this would be useful. 

Perhaps this restriction was made because without it, some terrible bugs appear that are impossible to fix (due the legacy code)? 🤔

I just wanted to create the simplest app screen possible, where the navbar expands in width depending on the screen size. There's a responsive option in the prototype view, but this limitation makes this prototype mode pointless, because the only way to achieve proper navbar expansion is to make the navbar non-fixed, and organize scrolling not in the parent container/frame, but in a sibling container (sibling for this navbar).

Please pay attention to this issue. Yes, it's not a global issue, and there is a workaround, but it complicates the workflow and creates unnecessary layers 🕊️