Hi!

Im having the same issue in 2024. Trying to do some unmoderated tests and getting people saying that need an account to view the prototypes and getting an error that there are no prototypes to view.

Hi there,

I’m having the same issue with any prototype I create. Whenever I send the link to another device to check how it works I am prompted to sign in. It doesn’t matter which link I use to share the prototype. I tried emailing the email address above and get a bounce back. Surely ther eis a solution to this now a year later?

Update: I think the problem was that I also have the Figma app on my device and it was attempting to launch that. Deleting the app seems to have solved the issue.

Hey there, i have the same issue here. Can you lookout to fix this please ? My clients don’t have Figma account of course…

Hi,

I’ve noticed that people who are reporting the problem (i’m one of them) use a business Figma account provided by their organization. Prototype share settings might be different from the personal accounts. For instance, I can’t share the prototype with “Anyone with the link” because it’s disabled by Admin. Instead I can only share it within the organization.

Figma offers an alternative way to share a prototype by sending an invite via email. However, in order to use it a recipient must to have a Figma account. This defeats the purpose of using the prototype function as users who don’t have a Figma account can’t use it.

This is a very frustrating gap in Figma functionality. This is especially true for UX Researches who rely on Figma for usability studies.

I am also experiencing this same issue. I just contacted support.

If I set it to “can view” instead of “can view prototypes” then it doesn’t prompt for a login, but that’s not what I want to share.

I will update here once I hear back from support. I linked this thread as well.

UPDATE and FIX

As @Michael_Taggart mentioned above, the following should work:

1. Present your prototype first. IMPORTANT!


2. In the presentation window, at the top right you’ll see “Share Prototype”. Click that


3. Then click the “Copy link” at the top of the small modal

If you click the “Share” button in Figma while designing and choose that “Copy link” it will not work. Apparently that’s sharing a link to edit the file, not view the prototypes. (even though both the “Share” and “Share Prototype” buttons bring up the same modal.

I just sent my links as you proposed here https://help.figma.com/hc/en-us/requests/new using my Figma account email and I shared it with support-share@figma.com:

From the first one I just got email with some links to articles, all that I already know.

From the email address support-share I got this answer:

" Hello,

We’re writing to let you know that the group you tried to contact (support-share) may not exist, or you may not have permission to post messages to the group. A few more details on why you weren’t able to post:

** You might have spelled or formatted the group name incorrectly.*

** The owner of the group may have removed this group.*

** You may need to join the group before receiving permission to post.*

** This group may not be open to posting.*

If you have questions related to this or any other Google Group, visit the Help Center at https://support.google.com/a/figma.com/bin/topic.py?topic=25838.

Thanks,

figma.com admins"

I don’t get it, what group should I join to get the answer.

Has anyone solved this problem?

It doesn’t seem right. Could you share the case number so we can check?

Thanks,

Toku

Ran into this issue this morning. Insanely frustrating.

Scenario:

• I can’t view the prototype via a share link in Safari


• I can in Chrome (likely because I’m a Figma user logged into chrome?)


• Coworker can not see it in chrome


• this was working fine earlier in the week.

The specific issue is this 401 error we get with trying to access prototype/view:

24

162

26.0 MB

2.29 MB

28

1.21s

Summary

URL: https://www.figma.com/api/files/lGUID]/prototype/view

Status: 401 Unauthorized

Source: Network

Any suggestions?

I’ve tried copying the prototype into new pages and even new Figma files but all end up with the same problem.

UPDATE:

Quick update…it does appear that asking users to use private/incognito mode resolves this issue. Clumsy workaround but at least we can get to the prototype. Maybe this is a clue that may help the Figma team debug this issue.

We are still struggling to replicate this, so could you reach out to our support team?

I can’t share anything. create a new file in new project and still it asks to log in when shared “anyone with the link”. What a sorry support can’t do anything and don’t know how to diagnose issue.

Hey @RonMan, sorry for the trouble and confusion!

My reply from February is outdated. Have you tried all the workarounds that were suggested by the community after my previous reply above?

UPDATE:

Quick update…it does appear that asking users to use private/incognito mode resolves this issue. Clumsy workaround but at least we can get to the prototype.

Most of these solutions were also suggested by the support team. Depending on your account type, OS, and app/browser/device you’re using, any one of these workarounds should help!

Sharing with “Anyone can view” works over here to get around the login requirement, but there’s still a thick banner taking up 25% of the screen telling viewers to create an account that can’t be removed, obstructing the design to our clients. We can’t really use Figma for our client projects when it’s like this.

Thats ridiculous. ITS INSANE. I was sitting with a test person for my bachelors evaluation and tried to send her the link. The exact same link with Figma/prototype at the beginning worked a month ago with my professor in a zoom call, now IT DOESNT. Ill need to manage to get an additional test person and the quantitative evaluation wont work at all now, because the only way to test it now is to view the prototype with my phone and film the process with another. Thats completely crazy, in the final week of my bachelors exam

Hello,

I’m encountering the same issue. There are three ways to share prototypes with clients: directly via the design editor, using the green Share button in presentation mode, or by copying the direct link from the flow in presentation mode. I tested all three methods in both Chrome and Safari using a private browser window after copying the links into a single document for comparison. Unfortunately, each link required me to sign in to view the prototypes. While they all lead to the same flow, the links are completely different. I’ve tried all the suggested solutions, but nothing has worked. This is incredibly frustrating for both my agency and our clients, who had access to the prototypes yesterday but now must create an account and sign in. I cannot use the “Anyone may access this prototype” feature due to the sensitive nature of the designs, as making them public would breach our contract. Please advise on a solution as soon as possible.

Thank you.

I also have been having the same issue. We also accidentally allowed a client to view the entire file as he had to “get approved access” which somehow led him in the file editor side in view mode. Would love Figma to please go back to the old sharing settings as this had a lot more control for users over sharing settings and was a lot more “client friendly” as we don’t want clients to have to sign up to view a prototype once and never use Figma again.

Make sure you share the link with Anyone can view access. It doesn’t require to signing up to view the file with this setting.

Figma Support, please understand that Figma account admins (especially in enterprises) are often management people who do not use Figma themselves. Meanwhile, UX Researchers absolutely NEED the ability to share a prototype with “Anyone with the Link” for testing purposes. With this permission turned off by default, it is often extremely difficult for us to get the attention of a busy manager in order to change that Admin permission. This restriction is making Figma, a usability design tool, unusable for usability testing. Please rethink and redesign your very complicated sharing and permission system.

FYI, the way I’ve been working around this is to require a password - once the password is entered, the user is not prompted to create a Figma account.

Still annoying, but better than requiring a signup.

Incorrect answer. Does not work.

THIS IS THE FIX!

After all of the BS answers on here. This is the bug. If you are logged into the browser version of Figma and you paste your copied link in the browser it will not take you directly to the prototype. For some stupid reason it will ask you to pick which account you want to view it from. This leads us all to believe that anyone trying to access the prototype will need a Figma account to view it. LOG OUT in browser and the view link works just fine. THANK YOU SO MUCH!. These support people on here are ridiculous. This should be the first and only answer on this page.