Enable seeing comments from the master file also in the branches

Thanks for this feedback. I’ll have to double check with the team, but I think this is unfortunately by design.

I’m thinking through how we might do this better in the future, but it gets pretty complicated in my head. For example, if an object is moved and changed, does the comment move with it? If the comment is resolved in a branch, is it also resolved in main?

One thing that might help is to open up the main branch and the brahcn you are working in in two different windows. To do this, you can use cmd-shift-N to open a new window on the desktop (or in the browser, just open a new browser window)

I’m finding this quite annoying too. It’s hard to know where comments exist and what has changed when you don’t have them in front of you. It’s quite frustrating to have to keep both windows open and constantly check for diffs.

I’m not sure why comments can’t just stick to frames—when branching and when copying/pasting to another page in a file. This has been an issue that slows down my workflow for so long.

Yes, I would expect that the comments update exactly as the files do. If I resolve, add, or delete a comment in a branch it should mirror in main. Vice versa, if I perform those actions in main, they should push to open branches.

I would love for something like this to be implemented. Ideally, I would like a way to manage comments between branches, similar to (but independent from) how you can sync and merge design assets between the main file and branches.

In our product design team, the main file represents the current “accepted/stable” state of the work—a reference for what has been reviewed by the broader product team, and the basis for our next round of revisions or testing. This is where developer, product managers and others leave comments and in turn what they use to plan development and create documentation.

Meanwhile, we will have working branches where the design team works to iterate and experiment on particular features. It would be nice to be able to pull comments from the main file into these branches so that we don’t have to copy-paste comments or keep both tabs open.

We also create testing branches to document user testing sessions and record feedback. It would be helpful to be able to merge the comments from these branches into the main file (or pull into a working branch) without necessarily merging the designs.

It’d be ideal if along with the designs, comments migrated into a branch from the main file. Can we make this happen? 

Hi ​@Brooke Peterson, thanks for the feedback! 

I’ve merged your topic with this similar, existing one in the community. This hasn't seen movement since our team's initial reply back in 2021 by ​@Sho_Kuwamoto. Right now, comment behavior across branches (e.g., how resolving or moving a comment in a branch should relate to main) is genuinely complex to get right, which is part of why it hasn't moved forward yet.

The temporary solution of viewing the main and your branch in separate windows (Cmd/Ctrl+Shift+N) is still the best option in the meantime.