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Question

Variables referencing another file

  • February 12, 2024
  • 5 replies
  • 1159 views
Hamish_Unified

Hi there,

I’m building a UI kit and I recently had a whole collection of 100s of component-level variables (color, spacing etc) deleted by Figma and I had to revert to an old file (file 1). Before I did that, I made a copy of my current file (file 2) to preserve recent component updates.

After I restored file 1 with the component variable collection in it, I copied the more up to date components from file 2 into file 1.

The issue now is that all the variables (and there are a lot of them) in file 1 are referencing file 2. It’s extremely laborious to manually switch the references for every component token. Is there a plugin that could do the job for me? I tried the swap feature of the Variables Pro plugin, but that didn’t seem to do much.

Any help would be appreciated.

Thanks,
Hamish

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5 replies

djv
Figmate
  • djv
  • Community Support
  • 5227 replies
  • February 13, 2024

Hey @Hamish_Unified, sorry to hear this happened!

There are plugins in the community that may help. Here’s an example:

Figma
Guy_Meyer1
  • Guy_Meyer1
  • 7 replies
  • February 13, 2024

Im really curious to hear how Figma deleted your variables. 🙂

Hamish_Unified

Hi @dvaliao,

Thanks for the response. This plugin doesn’t seem to work as it’s for reattaching instances, rather than re-linking variables to a master component.

@Guy_Meyer1, I would also like to know this! I guess it’s a reminder that variables is still in BETA. I just noticed that suddenly all my colour variables weren’t linked to anything on my components.

Thanks,
Hamish

djv
Figmate
  • djv
  • Community Support
  • 5227 replies
  • February 13, 2024

Thanks for clarifying and sorry for the oversight!

Sadly, it doesn’t look like there’s plugin with this capability. Any other existing re-link plugins we can see are also for instances.

laurel.ch
  • laurel.ch
  • New Participant
  • 14 replies
  • June 26, 2024

I’m having the same issue right now. I have fixed all my “Missing Libraries” in my design system using a plugin. But my variables are still referencing those old missing libraries. There isn’t a way to replace them with new library styles (when I click on “All Libraries” there is no option to select a different library).

I think I may have to completely delete the variables. For the current project they aren’t really doing much for me anyway.

Product Design Lead, Enterprise Software 🏳️‍🌈 12 years designing for software, 7 years in Figma
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