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Stefan_Pilipovic
February 11, 2021

Disable auto-nesting/auto-reparenting while moving objects

  • February 11, 2021
  • 68 replies
  • 17237 views
  1. Describe the problem your experiencing and how your idea helps solve this

The issue with this feature has been covered many times in Spectrum discussions:

Spectrum – 3 Jan 18

There is a way to avoid this by holding SPACE as soon as you click & don’t start dragging the object. But why force us to do acrobatics with our fingers by holding down an additional button, just to move the object? Why not provide an option to disable that functionality completely?

Nagaraj Chandran had a very logical idea in his comment:
“I don’t want to hold the spacebar key to disable auto-nesting. Maybe, it should be the other way around. Hold spacebar or any other key to auto-nest.”

  1. Add as much context as possible (screenshots, Figma files, mockups, etc.)

More than enough in discussions on Spectrum ☝️

  1. Ask questions to bring the community into the conversation

Does anybody find this feature useful? If yes, please enlighten me on how to make use of it because it’s driving me insane and kills my productivity big time.

68 replies

Chris_Ford
March 6, 2024

I’d also like to request a feature to disable the auto-nesting/reparenting when moving objects. It’s a bit frustrating when objects get nested in every frame/group they pass over. Could we have a toggle or a keyboard shortcut for more control, similar to how Adobe Illustrator handles object movement? This would greatly streamline my workflow.

neff
March 18, 2024

Yes, coming from XD (like many) this auto-nesting behavior is terrible. Especially because the holding of the spacebar doesnt work reliable.

I’m fighting with the interface every time I try to just quickly move an icon in a group and then suddenly having it auto-inserting into an underlaying group.

djv
Figmate
Community Support
March 18, 2024

Hey All, thanks for the feedback and apologies for the late acknowledgement!

We’ll pass this onto our team for future consideration.

Marco_Yu
New Member
April 14, 2024

This stupid annoying problem hasn’t been solved yet? What are you doing Figma team

April 19, 2024

Three years is more than ‘late acknowledgement’

Stu_BC
April 26, 2024

What @Neff said. Please fix this.

Levang_Ray
New Participant
June 20, 2024

Fix this please.

Ryan_Brown1
New Participant
January 15, 2025

Yes, totally agree with all of this. There should be a checkbox on every frame to disable this functionality by default.

Also the current spacebar functionality should be reversed to where holding spacebar and dragging means that you want to nest the object. Otherwise dragging and dropping should not nest.
 

 

Blake Hicks
New Member
January 15, 2025

1000% cosign. This has been my biggest peeve with Figma from day one.

Cristóbal Alarcón
New Member
January 30, 2025

Holding spacebar doesn’t seems to work on my end. This feature is really annoying :(