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Question

Limited amount of variables with figma Organization ?


Sylvain

Hello there,

I recently created more than 500 design tokens and applied them to our design system, but I'm blocked by the upscale modal when I try to publish my update.

I don’t use more than 4 variable modes in my entire collection.

I don’t see any limitations mentioned on the pricing page, and the support doc states that there is support for +5000 variables.

I really don’t understand why I can’t publish my variables on the Organization plan. Can anyone help?

Thanks,
Sylvain

3 replies

Celine_
Figmate
  • Community Support
  • 3698 replies
  • March 4, 2025

Hey ​@Sylvain ,
Thanks for flagging this! That does seem odd—I can confirm that you should be able to publish your variables and that the Organization plan supports up to 4 modes per collection.

We’d like our support team to investigate this further. Could you please reach out to our support team by filling out this form here? https://help.figma.com/hc/en-us/requests/new
This will greatly help with the investigation. In the form, please use your Figma account email, include a link to the file, and share it with support-share@figma.com, can review your variable settings more closely. Thank you!


Sylvain
  • Author
  • New Member
  • 1 reply
  • March 5, 2025

Thanks @Celine_D

I found a way to publish by isolating the ghost collection, but the bug is still there (it’s a merge bug).

Version 1 has a collection with more than 4 modes. In Version 2, the collection was removed, but the system doesn't authorize me to remove a collection with more than 4 modes... pretty dumb.

In the past, Figma locked users from creating more than 4 modes. Now they authorize them to create more and force an upsell for publishing.

It’s sad how a little bullish business change can drastically impact the user experience.

Regards


Celine_
Figmate
  • Community Support
  • 3698 replies
  • March 7, 2025

Thanks for your feedback Sylvain. I understand how frustrating this limitation can be with the variables. Rest assured, our team is actively working on improvements to make removing variables and updating modes easier in the future.
 

I noticed on the backend that the support team has already responded to you with some suggestions. I'm also sharing them here for the community in case others encounter a similar issue:

For now, try these suggestions:

  • Use a variable management plugin to find and remove variables from subscribed files. Like this one here . However, please note that this and most plugins are developed and managed by third parties in the Figma Community rather than by Figma and our support team will generally not be able to provide further support on how to use or for any issues encountered when using these plugins.
  • Manually remove variables as you see them in use. You can go through each page in your file and run the quick action (using Cmd|Ctrl + K) and typing "Detach deleted variables" on all components and layers. To do this quicker you can go on each page and select all (cmd/ctrl + A) and run the command. And then go through each instance manually on each page, then run quick action "select all with same instance" to select all instances on the page in bulk and run the command to detach on those as well.

 
You can also find used variables by:

  • Using selection colors for color variables.
  • Checking the mode picker for a selection to see if a variable from a specific collection is in use.

 
If you only see conflicts or deleted collections at ‌page level, the variables are likely in the file's internal canvas. This is where we store information about subscribed components, styles, and variables. It's not always possible to clear these uses. 

 


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