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Dan2
New Participant
March 11, 2021

Control variant export naming (especially for icons)

  • March 11, 2021
  • 55 replies
  • 13525 views

When exporting variant names, the file name becomes a combination of all the variant properties.

There is no way to control the variant export name, which is especially difficult for developer hand-off.

In this example, I have a back icon variant group (Named “Back”) containing both an Apple and an Android variant of the back icon.

If I then go to export the Apple variant as an SVG,

The variant export name then defaults to “OS Type=Apple.svg”
Screen Shot 2021-03-11 at 8.35.40 AM

It would be even worse if I had multiple properties. For example, having two more properties could result in a variant name export as “OS Type=Apple, Direction=Left, Style=Line.svg”

This is a very poor naming convention, especially for icons. What I would like to have is the ability to control the name given to each variant export.

In the above example, I would like the Apple icon to export as the name “back.ios.svg” and the Android icon to export as “back.android.svg”. This way, our developers can export assets as needed directly from Figma without having to figure out what name to give each icon — further bringing together the designer/developer handoff.

Anyone else having this problem or have found a workaround?

55 replies

March 29, 2023

We are also experiencing the same issue and we hope Figma will address this problem soon.

August 21, 2023

+1 on this issue. It’s a hassle for devs to have to rename the file the name of the component should be included in the exported file name as well.

Deanna_Liceaga
August 22, 2023

+100 This is a huge issue for creating libraries. Figma please fix this!

Marijn
New Member
September 6, 2023

Same here, every time renaming filenames. plz Figma, can you give us some more export control

January 6, 2024

Given how robust is Figma becoming, this is a big let down when it comes to developer handoff. Figma please give us a workaround natively!

January 6, 2024

I resolved the issue by creating an Apple Automator Workflow that converts the Figma variant “=” to “_”. Additionally, it exports all the filenames to a CSV file. Our developer can then take the CSV file containing the filenames and import them into their array.

The Apple Automator Workflow file can be downloaded at: Dropbox - Figma to CSV.workflow.zip - Simplify your life

Rachel_Pardo
New Member
January 19, 2024

+1 on this issue.

Karsten1
New Member
February 2, 2024

+1 for the topic, the naming convention is completely lost

February 9, 2024

Agree this is kind of outrageous it hasn’t been addressed yet, especially with the paid dev mode seats now in full effect. Icons exported from dev mode only carry the component name and lose the variant name, adding even more confusion to this mess. Can you please get this sorted asap Figma. We looked into connecting icon libraries to Git and it’s just a huge pain trying to get icons out of Figma without so many extra steps or loss of information (variant names)

February 22, 2024

still waiting for this…