Skip to main content
Antoine
Antoine
Active Member
October 5, 2021

Global live library sharing

  • October 5, 2021
  • 84 replies
  • 10630 views

After discussing the subject at length with the support, here’s a summary of what Figma allows and doesn’t allow in terms of library sharing (hint: it’s not that simple), and how it could be streamlined:

Currently, as a component library creator, here are the options you have in order to share your library (I will not include the options for a Starter plan, they are legitimately limited)

As a Pro user:

  1. Publish it and share it within your Team (to users you - or your admin - pays for) using the Team library feature. They can access the component anywhere inside the Team’s files, and get realtime updates. Links are preserved throughout even with multiple files.
  2. Share it on Community (to users outside your Team): they can duplicate the file to their respective spaces, without live updates. Links won’t be preserved if the library includes multiple files.
  3. Share it via link (view-only) to selected users: they can either duplicate it (although not as easy as a Community file), or use it as a shared library (it appears in the “Team library” modal) with live update and link preservation ONLY if they are Starter or Pro users (Org users won’t be able to).
  4. Share it as .fig file to anyone: users won’t get live updates or even see if there’s an update. Links will be broken if the library is composed of several files.

As an Org member:
All of the above except the second part of 3. > Designers within an Org cannot use this share “feature”. And that’s the whole issue.

After clarification with the support, it appears the 3. method of sharing, that resembles how Sketch allows library sharing (across spaces and licences), is more or less accidental. Which is a shame because it’s the most horizontal and powerful.

So, it would be nice to have a supported way of sharing a component library (comprised of one or several linked files):

  • As long as you pay for Figma (Pro and Org users)
  • To any user (paid, and if possible, free)
  • Keeping realtime updates

One way to do it would be allowing live updates on Community files, rather than Duplicate (or both). I love Figma way more than Sketch but the best way to describe it is “Sketch-like”.

Any comment is welcome!

    84 replies

    Show previous replies
    Nick80
    Nick80
    April 10, 2024

    This feature needs to be implemented. I work for an internet service provider, and we have an outside vendor handling our marketing emails.

    As an in-house designer, we created a design system for our brand language for that outside vendor to use when crafting emails. Without the ability to share our design library with them, there is no way to ensure they will be using the most up to date assets from our brand system.

    We need this ability ASAP!!

      Adrian_Yee2
      Adrian_Yee2
      April 17, 2024

      hey, has there been any progress on this issue?

      Stasindo_Dev
      Stasindo_Dev
      April 17, 2024

      Adding a use case here for your consideration Figma team.

      in our case we are a multi-national bank and we had a global design library from our holding company in country X.

      We are regionally managed and have a big autonomy in each regional (country) as you can think from operational POV we had our own finance director in each country, so are our billings (it’s not an option to ask our group company for our billing), we have different subs plan for each country design team, and only then we came across this problem when we had uncertainty on using shared library between our organisation plans.

      Hope this use case can help you to push this capability.

        MartinFujak
        MartinFujak
        April 17, 2024

        Nothing, nada, zero. They are adding more and more useless features like analytic API, gradient tokens and stuff, but something like sharing a library is no go…

          adrian_n
          adrian_n
          New Participant
          June 25, 2024

          I just read the «Sharing libraries across organizations» thread and was hoping that there was some sort of idea already brought up in this direction.

          To efficiently work together as multiple suppliers for the same client, it would not just be nice, but actually necessary to being able to share library files across organizations (without the need of publishing them publicly).

            Fee
            Fee
            July 1, 2024

            As a freelance contractor, I would like to add my voice to the list of many requesting this feature. I have clients that love the way I use Figma & are looking to leverage it to implement Design Libraries to be shared with their multiple vendors but without this it makes it hard for me to sell them on the long term benefits of using Figma.

              yindi
              yindi
              August 20, 2024

              +10000! I utilize the library of an open source design. It’s really inefficient to have to persistently copy over their library in order to use updated components.

                Jeremy_Hamilton
                Jeremy_Hamilton
                New Participant
                October 16, 2024

                +Voted

                Come on Figma, it’s stunning that collaboration is being limited at large global orgs and small businesses in such a fundamental way and this (expected) feature isn’t even on the roadmap.

                Thessa
                Thessa
                November 11, 2024

                Can’t believe they are not willing to work on this soon. We’re also struggling with a client’s design system because there’s no way to share it across organisations.

                Chris.dpa
                Chris.dpa
                New Member
                February 5, 2025

                Same use case as everyone else. It’s close to a deal-breaker.

                Show more replies
                Terms & ConditionsAccessibility statement