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Paul Kalousek
Paul Kalousek
New Member
July 25, 2026
Solved

ctrl hotkey not working to disable smart guides and all snapping

  • July 25, 2026
  • 4 replies
  • 82 views

As the title says.

I have tested in browser and desktop app
I have reset the figma app
I have restarted Windows 11

Please reply if you are experiencing this bug. If not, I suppose I have more troubleshooting to go through.

Best answer by adamsmasher

Ahh, ok - thanks for sharing that, ​@Paul Kalousek. I understand better what you’re referring to! In Windows, the shortcut to temporarily suspend those red "Snap to objects" guides is S, which in Mac OS is achieved with Control. 

 

Since you mentioned wanting to turn the red guides off entirely rather than holding a key down the whole time: good news, you can! Open the main Preferences menu, then toggle off Snap to objects. You can also get there faster through the quick actions menu (Ctrl + /) by typing "snap to objects." That'll fully disable the auto-alignment guides for your image-placement workflow, and you can flip it back on anytime the same way.

 

Let me know if that gets you the control you're looking for!

4 replies

adamsmasher
Figmate
adamsmasher
Figmate
July 26, 2026

Thanks for your post, ​@Paul Kalousek! Seems like you’ve already done some basic troubleshooting to try and resolve this for yourself. 

 

By smart guides, are you referring to layout guides or guides used with rules? Is the option you are trying to toggle the Snap to pixel grid option? I tested and can see the option toggling on and off, with a message being shown at the bottom of the canvas. I’m on Mac OS rather than Windows, though, so the key combination for me uses the command key rather than CTRL. Do you have anything else on your computer that might use the same key command of SHIFT + CTRL + ‘?

Paul Kalousek
Paul KalousekAuthor
New Member
July 26, 2026

I found at that the hotkey I was seeking was remapped from ctrl to s. Probably a change pushed through in a software update.

 

Holding S disables the red guides that indicate where the current selected object will be snapped to in alignment with other objects. So, not a pixel grid snapping issue. I am not sure what Figma calls these red guides, but they are it seems impossible to disable other than by holding S key.

 

It would be so nice to be able to turn off red guides in a menu setting temporarily, since some of my workflows involve quickly placing and arranging images into a frame without need for the jittery and often confusing alignments auto-enforced by this setting. Holding down S perpetually will be fine for now.

adamsmasher
Figmate
adamsmasherAnswer
Figmate
July 26, 2026

Ahh, ok - thanks for sharing that, ​@Paul Kalousek. I understand better what you’re referring to! In Windows, the shortcut to temporarily suspend those red "Snap to objects" guides is S, which in Mac OS is achieved with Control. 

 

Since you mentioned wanting to turn the red guides off entirely rather than holding a key down the whole time: good news, you can! Open the main Preferences menu, then toggle off Snap to objects. You can also get there faster through the quick actions menu (Ctrl + /) by typing "snap to objects." That'll fully disable the auto-alignment guides for your image-placement workflow, and you can flip it back on anytime the same way.

 

Let me know if that gets you the control you're looking for!

Paul Kalousek
Paul KalousekAuthor
New Member
July 26, 2026

Sweet, thank you for the reply.

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