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Martin Goyot
Martin Goyot
New Member
September 30, 2025
Solved

Middle click button pasting on Linux

  • September 30, 2025
  • 4 replies
  • 1033 views

This is a revival of :

 

Is there any news on this? I really would like to be able to move using the middle click without it catching the paste like other Apps like Excalidraw do.

    This topic has been closed for replies.
    Best answer by Celine_

    Hi everyone, thanks for reaching out on the Figma Forum! Céline from Figma here.
    I understand this behavior can be inconvenient when using the middle-click on Linux. 

    I checked this internally, and I can confirm that on Linux, the middle mouse button is mapped to “paste” at the system level by default. And, unfortunately Figma doesn’t currently have a built-in way to disable or override that behavior.
     
    Some users have shared workarounds in a related thread here:

    In that thread, someone mentioned that Firefox allows you to disable this by changing the middlemouse.paste setting. Depending on your Linux setup, there may also be system-level ways to turn this off. There is also this helpful article if you want to explore more: here.

    If none of those workarounds help, I’d recommend looking for Linux-specific solutions to disable or remap middle-click paste globally.

    We have also shared your feedback with our team as a feature request to add a way to customize or override the middle mouse button behavior in Figma. Thanks again for flagging this!
     

    4 replies

    bp88dev
    bp88dev
    New Member
    October 30, 2025

    I’m having this issue too, I need Figma for school, and it’s starting to be very annoying, as you have to scroll instead of pan. Thought I should post this to keep this alive as it’s been 30 days.

      Celine_
      Figmate
      Celine_Answer
      Community Support
      November 6, 2025

      Hi everyone, thanks for reaching out on the Figma Forum! Céline from Figma here.
      I understand this behavior can be inconvenient when using the middle-click on Linux. 

      I checked this internally, and I can confirm that on Linux, the middle mouse button is mapped to “paste” at the system level by default. And, unfortunately Figma doesn’t currently have a built-in way to disable or override that behavior.
       
      Some users have shared workarounds in a related thread here:

      In that thread, someone mentioned that Firefox allows you to disable this by changing the middlemouse.paste setting. Depending on your Linux setup, there may also be system-level ways to turn this off. There is also this helpful article if you want to explore more: here.

      If none of those workarounds help, I’d recommend looking for Linux-specific solutions to disable or remap middle-click paste globally.

      We have also shared your feedback with our team as a feature request to add a way to customize or override the middle mouse button behavior in Figma. Thanks again for flagging this!
       

      Martin Goyot
      Martin GoyotAuthor
      New Member
      November 6, 2025

      Hello Celine,

       

      Thanks for your answer! The middle mouse paste is indeed an expected behavior on Linux, it is pretty standard. Just to clarify, the issue is not that using the middle-click is pasting content as it is an expected behavior, and thus disabling it on Browser or System level would not be a workaround. The issue is that the middle click is getting registered when keeping it pressed down to move the canvas.

      In other softwares, on Excalidraw or Miro for instance, if I simply use the middle button it will indeed paste the content; but if I keep it pressed down and drag the mouse to move the canvas around, then the canvas will move AND no pasting will happen.

       

      I hope this clarifies the issue and the expected behavior.

      Thanks again!

       

        Celine_
        Figmate
        Celine_
        Community Support
        November 6, 2025

        Oh got it, thanks for the detailed explanation! (especially the distinction between a single middle-click paste expected on Linux and the unwanted paste that happens while dragging to pan the canvas). That really helps clarify the behavior you're expecting.

        I can see how ignoring the paste event specifically during a middle-mouse drag would make the experience much smoother for Linux users, so I’ve shared this suggestion with our product team for review.

        While I can’t promise anything right away, your feedback has been logged as a feature request, and it will be taken into consideration as we continue improving Figma’s Linux support.

        You can keep an eye on our Releases page for future updates: https://www.figma.com/release-notes/

        Thanks again for taking the time to explain this issue! I’ve gone ahead and switched this topic as a feature request.

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