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Hamish_Unified
Hamish_Unified
February 12, 2024
Question

Variables referencing another file

  • February 12, 2024
  • 5 replies
  • 1395 views

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

This topic has been closed for replies.

5 replies

djv
Figmate
djv
Community Support
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
February 13, 2024

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

Hamish_Unified
Hamish_UnifiedAuthor
February 13, 2024

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
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
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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