Skip to main content
Question

Moving variables between libraries

  • July 22, 2026
  • 2 replies
  • 44 views
Jeremy Kanter at Plume

There is currently no way to move/transfer variables between published libraries (while maintaining all linkages) the same way you can with components or styles, right?

My use case is that we currently have two separate libraries—“Styles” which contains typography and spacing variables, and “Colors” which contains color variables—that I would like to merge into one. But we have all sorts of legacy stuff pointed at “Colors,” so I don’t think an export/import/swap libraries process is going to cut it.

Am I missing anything? Has anyone found a solution for this problem? Or is it at least on Figma’s roadmap?

2 replies

Jeremy Kanter at Plume

🦗

Jaycee Lewis
Figmate

Hey hey ​@Jeremy Kanter at Plume 👋

Sorry for the long silence here — let's get you an answer. I'm not quite ready to rule out Swap Libraries, but I've got two questions first, because your answers change the advice quite a bit.

  • Roughly how many files point at "Colors" today? Swap runs one file at a time, so that could be a little or a lot as far as commitment goes
  • What are the collection names inside each library, and what would they be after the merge? The docs describe swap as matching variable collections between libraries, so if "Colors" becomes something else in the merged file, that may matter more than the individual variable names do

I’d like to set up a quick repro and this will help me understand things better

Thanks for bumping it — 🦗

— Jaycee

Terms & ConditionsAccessibility statement