Two ideas that are related/similar:

1. 
   

   Incognito mode
   
   I work at a design agency where on most projects, each designer has their own working file. It would be great to have an incognito mode to be able to view others’ files without distracting them or being distracted by them browsing my file. I feel pressure when I see their cursor flying around in my file unexpectedly.
   
   Also when someone chooses to work late hours and it is visible to the rest of the team, it puts pressure on the rest of the team to feel like we need to work late as well. Incognito would allow those who choose to, to work late without showing up for others and impacting them in that way as well.

   
   


2. 
   

   A way to lock the “show/hide multiple cursors” option
   
   If incognito is not viable, having a way to lock the “show/hide multiple cursors” option would be a great alternative. Currently, I can set the cursors to hide but if I close figma and return later, the option is set back to “show”. Further, it would be great if hiding multiple cursors also hid the user’s profile up in the top right of the UI. All of this would be for the same reasons mentioned for incognito above - to reduce distraction and pressure.

   
   

Drafts don’t work when you have components set in your file. I learned the hard way: Transferring those files reverts variants to the original, it opens up your designs for loads of errors and is just, plain inconvenient.

As a file owner, I don’t see why I wouldn’t have that functionality.

It’s an inhibitor for workflow because it’s uncomfortable. As many Figma users stated, when someone sits and watches you work, it feels like micromanaging. Rather than have an uncomfortable conversation with someone about how they are a micromanager and you want it to stop, simply removing their ability to observe, until deemed appropriate, would be ideal.

Luckily not many people deal with this issue, but for those who do, it is a very real and painful problem.

All of the above replies are resonating with me on the topic. Several different problems exist to me, and many if not all can be solved by several of the ideas above. In my mind, the biggest issue is a client overlooking the designer’s live-work process (when a presentation is not ongoing), and another is simply preventing team members from getting pressured or distracted by other team members.

Designers shouldn’t have to have multiple files or work from their drafts to copy-paste things in just because we want to avoid the looking over your shoulder issue. It’s possible we can work around it by using branches, but as far as I know, we can’t work alongside team members while within a branch. Workarounds should be temporary solutions, and it’s not intuitive to work in the ways mentioned above, nor is it good to have someone micromanaging you, which we all agree happens in our lines of work.

File owners/managers should be able to disable observing and team cursours and I think even temporary revoke of viewing files altogether, without having to remove a viewer off of the file. One way of implementing it would be offering to disable observing and/or viewing for specific viewers, or all viewers. In the case of viewing revocation, anytime the person tries viewing the file, they could be given a single frame with the purpose of serving the viewer a locked splash that can be custom designed by the team saying something like “please wait this file is under construction any questions can be sent to X”. Going even further the locked viewing could be implemented through scheduling and set for automatic on/off by certain days or hours.

All this to say, everyone deserves a healthy work environment and we should be able to have oversight of what people can do when in our workspace.

I would like to see this feature implemented. As a developer it’s super annoying to see other people’s cursors moving over the stuff I’m looking at too.

And hence it’s great that I can turn this off, I’d rather be in incognito mode myself.

It’s just odd that you don’t know when other people are looking at what you are doing 👀 makes me feel watched

Cheers

@Dave2 I relate to what you’re saying, and have upvoted.

Also, to revive the topic a bit, as I feel it’s an important feature missing…

Could something like this work?

1. create a new page


2. right click on it in the Pages list


3. select “Run Privacy Mode”

Page would then not be visible to other file members.

This page would be always there for you, to work in it, and when done, move the frame to the page you were designing for.

Hi @Darko_Atanasov, I think you are describing another idea that is on the forum: Giving unique access to specific pages.

Hey @tank666 , thanks for sharing, I looked into it. Actually, that’s a more advanced way for handling this “private space” issue. I was going for a quick fix idea here 🙂

I have an idea for a simple fix for addressing the most disruptive/anxiety-inducing aspects of the current behavior:

It’s not as far-reaching as this idea of allowing “Observe” mode to be disabled – just a way to cut down the visual distraction alluded to by some of these comments.

This is an accessibility issue and I wish Figma would prioritize this.

I am a designer working on big projects with other designers and engineers (i.e. in the same file) at the same time. I just wish there was a way to HIDE who else is in the file at the same time as me, or hide myself from the other people, in the top bar. I don’t want to see their avatar/initial icon and don’t want them to see my avatar/initial icon. I find it incredibly distracting and anxiety-inducing.

PLEASE put this in the next update. I can’t stand seeing when people are following me in Figma while I’m working

Really hoping for this. It’s distracting for me as a developer referencing designer files to see the multiplayer cursors, so at the very least, wish the option to disable them was persistent. But really, I’d like to be able to just disable completely/be invisible from a user account level so others aren’t distracted by my cursor, which they never need to see.

Done, thank you! Really an important feature in my opinion.

What a toxic feature!! This is not healthy for designers or developers… zero usefulness for ones who are actually doing the work when not needed. I want to be able to turn on and off this feature just like I can do with the inverse (Multiplayer cursors). Since the inverse feature is available, it seems the groundwork to toggle this feature is there but probably managers inside and outside of Figma are pushing to force this feature.

Creepy and big brother’s watching vibes. Total disregard for privacy. It makes me avoid working in Figma and keep my interactions with Figma to a minimum. It also provides indicators to others to bother me because I’m online working when in fact I’m in focus-mode… the complete opposite signal I want to provide to others. Instead of the freedom to work how I want, I have the anxieties that it’s being watched and being judged. I think if you literally ask any designer or developer in Figma they will tell you the same, you’re probably just asking managers.

who ever suggested this feature should be fired, and his/her manager to

Yes, I agree with the feelings of the original poster.

It’s simple: I should be able to right-click my profile photo at the top right menu, and select “invisible mode”, which will prevent collaborators from seeing my presence on the page. This causes both my avatar photo and my cursor movements to no longer being visible on the page.

While for others it’s not visible, for me now it’s greyed-out. When I hover it, a popover says “Invisible mode”. When I right-click it, the options appear just as they did before, now with the option to disable invisible mode.

I am super annoyed when PM/s, PO/s, Designers, Devs or whoever just click on observing me all day, and I can tell that they are. I find it very unproductive and a breach of privacy.

I find not being able to disable ‘observe’ mode a gross violation of privacy and am shocked I cannot turn it off. We shouldn’t have to need to request this feature. Come on Figma!

Totally agree, this can be a worth feature, as long as every team member is able to deactivate it, or allow it only to certain users/groups. It harms both privacy and creativity, and it might provoke also a false impression to some people (let’s name them clients or bosses) who do not know how design e.g. works in real life. When my cursor won’t move for an hour, someone might think I’m not working, so no reason to pay me. Anyway, maybe I’m photoshopping something, studying the styleguide, looking up consistency with existing brand-sites e.g. Or just watch my work with a different eye, to maintain some always welcomed self-criticism and objectivity…

Another solution could be to en/disable following individually on different pages of a project (I have usually my drat and layout boards, and the some “ready-for-production” boards. This would be anyway great in terms of user/group rights, but this is another topic I’ll suggest one day…

This is kinda ridiculous. Sorry, with Sketch you don’t have to worry about this. I love Sketch.

How cool would it be if there was a little button you could click, and that puts you in “privacy” mode and no one can see you? Is that so much to ask? They worked hard to make people see your every movement though.

This is a non-issue with Sketch, an amazing program. Just sayin! When I’m trying to work it feels so creepy on Figma.

It’s totally beyond me how this is not an optional feature and turned off by default. It’s a privacy issue (in Europe at least), it’s discomforting, it’s counter-productive and induces a work atmosphere based on surveillance and distrust.

I personally support this and I know at least two more freelance senior designers with 20 years+ in industry that think the same (this feature is highly counter-productive, and trust me, this is the backbone of this industry). Was again made aware of a colleague yesterday who got stalked by an agency owner at 10:00 pm on a weekend in preparation of a client presentation. This is a knock-out criteria for Figma if anyone might ask me on how critical I think it is.

Community manager’s reaction to user needs in regard to privacy issues and personal discomfort does imply that the ability to micromanage and control (i.e. digitally stalk) designers and co-workers is deemed a USP (“Please pretend you are not being watched” just does not do the trick and tells me that person does know near zero about the way the industry and the individuals within work; it’s a people’s business and this feature is highly discomforting).

With the complexity of multi level cascading design systems and the way price plans on team and enterprise level work it’s often enough just not possible to withdraw permissions, copy files over to other team or individual spaces and have it work the same way than before - it just doesn’t work like that. Beside the fact that there are technical limitations this would be a workaround for a missing feature that should have been there from the very beginning.

Ridiculous having paying customers beg for it over months and years… I just don’t get it. You are aware of the fact that we have also influence on what pipeline is implemented on corporate level, are you?

This feature has been the biggest problem I have with Figma since I started working with it years ago.

I hate knowing that people are watching me work just because they have a viewing access to the file. It generates so much anxiety.

I don’t understand why this hasn’t been solved yet. It’s been a known problem for years.

Please let us work in peace on the files we want.

In my opinion, this could be very close to the “Privacy” or “Incognito” mode where everyone with the view access can only see the last saved version on a file. As designers, it would be understandable to have edit access and see real-time edits happening on the file.

This would be helpful to prevent micro-managing, as well as limiting the number of files a designer has to create for the same project (currently, we create two separate files. One is where designers make edits and the other is what we present to the clients for feedback/review)

this just keeps happening again and again to me. I can guarantee everyone here something… they’re probably working on adding MORE tracking, not taking this out… i repeat MORE tracking. they’re not taking this out ever. SWITCH TO SKETCH!!!

they’re never taking this out trust me

Imagine being able to work on a design and knowing that someone’s mouse isn’t going to pop in and start wiggling around everywhere. Switch to Sketch.