Auto-layout strange behaviour with images

Normally when you apply auto layout to a group of layers, Figma tries to “guess” the AL properties such as direction and gap based on the current relative position of selected layers. From my experience it usually gets it pretty close (e.g., should the direction be horizontal or vertical, and I might have to adjust the gap or direction if needed)

This seems like a special case - I think because the dimensions and x,y placement are all the same for your images it somehow guesses that you want these to be stacked fill layers. Maybe there is a use case for this (e.g., you’re building a UI with some z-order stacking or whatever)

If you stagger x,y position for at least one of the images and try to apply auto layout again, you’ll get a different behavior.

But it is called Auto-layout, it means changing the layout of objects, not their count and appearance. What you saying is bad UX, good UX is don’t lose users data/work.

What I expected after pressing Shift+A - make a frame with auto-layout with every image but one being in an absolute position