+1 for all to view annotations. I thought the feature would be visible by free viewers too since it seemed like the move from Dev mode to Design mode would become similar to comments.

+♾️ to annotations being viewable. 

Hey Figma fam  

I totally understand why you are trying to feature gate the Annotations, I’m sure it does forecast an opportunity to make Millions of dollars. (I’m having similar situations in my org too )

BUT the real problem you’re actually solving is worth WAYYYYY more than the millions. And that is the “joy of collaboration in the team”. Whilst that sounds cheesy, it does have a direct impact on livelihood both psychologically and professionally.

Please, I urge you to consider NOT to restrict viewing to specific cohorts. It not only makes it hard to have conversations to improve design processes within teams, it also puts designers in a vulnerable position where there is a lot of burnout, and stress. 

TBH I really don’t mind paying extra for it, because heck yeah it’s a fkn amazing feature and kudos to the amazing people who have built that. Idk, maybe increase the overall charge for teams who can afford it? It’s just that when it’s feature gated to a specific kind of seat, the conversations are harder to have and teams lose interest quickly :( 

PS: This is my first post in the community. Nice to be here with y’all 🥳

Λbi 

Annotations are the perfect tool for collaborating between the seats of Figma… not another privledged tool for the few.

Naaaauuurrrrrr i just spent 20 minutes adding annotations, proudly share the link to my free-seat viewers. Please make this widely availableeeee

+1 to this request. Our team relies on Dev Mode annotations to capture key implementation details and design rationale, but limiting visibility to paid Dev Mode seats breaks the workflow:

• Designers, PMs and QA can’t see the notes, so context gets lost and we end up duplicating comments elsewhere.

• Review links shared with external stakeholders show “empty” screens, which creates confusion and slows sign-off.

• Switching roles just to read an annotation is friction the product shouldn’t impose.

Please make annotations visible (or at least toggle-able) for all collaborators so they can serve as a single source of truth across disciplines. This change would dramatically boost adoption of Dev Mode in larger product teams.

+100 on this. Hiding annotations behind the Dev-Mode paywall turns a collaboration feature into a silo. In a normal sprint our designers leave implementation notes, PMs add business context, and QA flags edge cases—yet the moment any of them can’t read an annotation the whole chain of trust snaps and we’re back to screenshots in Slack.

Annotations need to be visible (even if read-only) to anyone who can open the file. Until that’s possible, we can’t roll Dev Mode out to the broader org, and that’s a missed win for Figma and for cross-functional teams like ours. Please prioritise this fix!

Okay so I think I might be running into this bug now as well. However since it’s 3 months on from the original question and it appears that this is indeed a `bug` that someone with `can view` access should be able to see annotations. 

So do we have a fix yet or is it still on a backlog? 

It's not a bug... it's a paywall.

​@djv wrote that to read the annotation, the user needs: "Full or a Dev seat and at least can view access to a file."

In other words, the feature could be released to everyone immediately (especially since, when they launched, it was already accessible to everyone), but they chose not to do so.

For some reason, with strong competitors arriving to completely transform the way designers create interfaces, they think frustrating us with meaningless decisions in an attempt to make a few bucks is the best option.

p.s.: However, I think the idea of ​​paying to WRITE annotations is acceptable.

Omg Rodrigo, thank you for clarifying that. I totally misread that!!!

So jumping on the bandwagon and saying that paying to SEE annotations is unacceptable. This is so annoying and now I have to completely rearchitect my approach to current work. 

Adding my voice here even though I don’t expect anything to be done about it. It feels  disengenous to gatekeep even just viewing annotations. Back to manual annotations for me, and sending good designer-vibes and energies to everyone else doing so as well. I hope I’m proven wrong and this is adjusted soon.

+100000000

Thanks, Figma, for this lovely little paywall surprise!

agree. this is absurd. annotations are a nice feature but also a basic feature, they should be available to everyone who is able to view a file.

I spent AGES adding annotations only to realise they are not viewable by view users.  It’s nonsensical.  These annotations are as needed by our business teams (whom we encourage to use Figma) as they are by our developers.   PLEASE resolve this Figma
 

So, I just spent 2 months adding annotations using Figma’s feature.

Before, we created a “notes” component and everything was fine.

Today, we discovered through stakeholders that they cannot see. It’s more than 10 people, which supposedly needs to pay $25/month each to just view our annotations.

Trying to get money for such a simple functionality is such a bummer. Please review this business choice asap.

We have been using annotations heavily for the past couple months. While Fima may have intended Developers to be the primary audience for annotations, Product Managers / SMEs, Reasearchers and other stakeholders who are not designers or developers still need to see annotations. Annotations commonly define behavior and conditions that need to be verified against product requirements and overarching goals. Because they are part of the file and visible outside of Dev Mode, they should be visible to anyone with view access. Requiring a paid seat just to read annotations feels like Figma is exploiting an opportunity more than supporting the users needs across the community.

Annotations are a must for all stakeholders not just developers

This is horrible, Figma! As many write here, I also just found that viewers that were intended to read my annotations, cannot do so. It costs us time!

3 months ago a rep wrote here that the bug (is it?) is being fixed. I work with developers. This should not take 3 months.

Be better to your paying customers. 

+1 for annotations being visible to all. It doesn’t make any sense to limit it! People that have a VIEW-only license should be able to VIEW EVERYTHING!

Dear dev mode team,

PLEASE allow viewers to see annotations notes. We are pushing for designer and develop adoption of annotation notes but with the current permissions, it falls flat.

Scenario:

As a designer, I hand-off designs to engineering on a call and share figma with all the beautiful interaction, content and functionality notes. I go on vacation. While away the PM runs a testing party on the new feature/changes and can’t see the annotation notes so they miss something/make their best guess and ship it. 

I’ve been adding annotations for the last 2 months only to today learn my devs have never been able to see them because they don’t have full or dev seats. That’s insane to paywall this feature and not explain it at all. So much wasted time and effort for something they can’t even access. Very disappointed this is paywalled. 

+1 for me. Super annoying not everyone is able to see simple annotations. This makes this otherwise great feature totally useless sadly enough…

+1. Common. Make READ for free, and WRITE paid. Otherwise I can use my own components and you did not have to bother adding it.

+1 - I already had components for adding annotations, and just wasted 3 hours adding annotations only to find out no one can see them. Make READ for free, and WRITE paid. I will never use this if the people that need to view these cant even see them. Useless feature. 

Switching back to my own components while being happy for 2 months. Nice Adobe move Figma, you’re just exactly like the thing we hate.