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Question

Sorting out duplicate tokens / duplicate variables ~ what to do?


Andrew16

Dear Figma community,

As the title suggests, I am hoping this is not the first time this issue is raised. If anything, I’d be surprised if this wasn’t being thought out at all.

How do you deal with situations where you have multiple overlapping / conflicting tokens / variables? What utility or plugins that allow you to “override”, “swap” or “merge” conflicting variables.

I “sort of” know that the only way to overcome is to gruellingly detach any suspecting components, use the “destroyer” plugin, and/or manually sift and sort through each and every individual variable by name (whilst manually “hunting” them by eye alone, which gets triggered by which state and which is not ~ all relying on memory alone).

Suggestions appreciated.

Andrew.
Screenshot 2024-03-22 at 5.44.17 pm

10 replies

y_toku
Figmate
  • Community Support
  • 2490 replies
  • March 25, 2024

Hi there,

Probably the previous discussion here could help:

I know it’s not the best solution for this situation but I hope this helps!

Thanks,
Toku


Andrew16
  • Author
  • 45 replies
  • March 26, 2024

Thank you

I have tried the above plugins and none of them seems to work! even though I was trying to just simply swap variables on just a frame both of them I kept getting variables not found.

“Detaching your components does not unlink the variables in them” < forgive me but how was this not be considered at all as a fundamental issue? Surely someone from Figma must have anticipated this to happen?

  • In any design workflow surely one would by instinct be combining various designs elements from other projects (each having their own variables);
  • and then we have to somehow “merge” these conflicting variables from multiple libraries into just one (1 local library.

Clarity appreciated.


y_toku
Figmate
  • Community Support
  • 2490 replies
  • March 27, 2024

It seems like we need some investigations. Could you reach out directly to the support team with a copy of your file: https://help.figma.com/hc/en-us/requests/new

Please make sure you use the email associated with your Figma account, include links to the file in question, and share access with support-share@figma.com. Don’t worry, inviting us to view your file won’t impact your billing.

Thanks for your patience!
Toku


Andrew16
  • Author
  • 45 replies
  • March 28, 2024

Hi there just letting you know yesterday I have submitted the file & direct link share on the support page. . Thank you all for looking into this. If anyone else also have problems pls keep this thread alive. regards, Andrew.


Andrew16
  • Author
  • 45 replies
  • March 28, 2024

To everyone who’s anxious for an update on this.

I got an official email that it is currently not possible~ to simply merge, swap or replace variables collection. That is quite surprising given nobody is talking about this glaring fundamental issue.

But at least my case have been acknowledged into their Product Team and that despite no feature deadline is possibly foreseeable at this stage. It’s just a waiting game for us all.

Andrew.


Nick_Gertonson

Any update here? I’m confused why this is happening and it’s leading to issues on my team.


Marcel Beer
  • New Member
  • 3 replies
  • January 23, 2025

I’ve got the same issue. Quite an unfortunate error aka unresolved issue.

 


Marcel Beer
  • New Member
  • 3 replies
  • January 23, 2025

It’s getting more confusing. I just renamed the collection to ‘content-used’. ONLY RENAMED!!!

I do now have a third collection to select.
But good for all workaround enthusiasts: Now everything works. 

 

 


Marcel Beer
  • New Member
  • 3 replies
  • January 23, 2025

🎆LIKE MAGIC 🎇 
The issue resolved itself over lunch. Thanks FIGMA!

(Maybe it has to do with what Andrew16 said about reconnecting variables. I reconnected all content items that had a broken link to variables.)


Celine_
Figmate
  • Community Support
  • 3555 replies
  • January 23, 2025

Hey ​@Marcel Beer , thanks for letting us know! Glad to hear it’s working now.

For others who are still having issues, as Toku mentioned, please reach out directly to the support team by filling out this form with a URL of the affected file: https://help.figma.com/hc/en-us/requests/new

This will help our support team to investigate further your specific case -as the root cause may be related or not-. Thank you!


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