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Make Dev Mode Annotations Visible to All

  • July 16, 2024
  • 187 replies
  • 3830 views

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187 replies

Meme Betadam
  • New Member
  • August 26, 2025

Annotations are useless unless they are visible to viewers. I can understand measurements only being available in dev mode, but annotations are useful for PMs and other members of the team.


adrian_n
  • New Participant
  • August 26, 2025

Why isn’t there an update on this topic? What else are we, the users (and «sponsors» of Figma in that sense) supposed to do to bring attention to this unacceptable situation?

On top of the fact that it appears suspicious to introduce a new tool/feature that allows users to add measurements and annotations but not inform anyone using it that they won’t be visible to viewers, it’s also completely unusable this way.

So, Figma ( ​@djv  ?) , please listen to your paying users, who are responsible for the absurd amounts of license fees paid every month, and make the annotations visible to all users with viewing permissions.


adrian_n
  • New Participant
  • August 26, 2025

Please ​@djv as stated in the other thread: could you please ensure to pass this request(s) on immediately and provide us with an update on the situation? The situation is not only annoying and frustrating, but also not acceptable.


Jesse_Wallace
  • New Participant
  • August 27, 2025

@adrian_n and everyone else, you can probably just forget about this and file it under all of the QOL fixes that Figma will never actually do. They are too focused on IPO and AI to deliver the features that users truly need.

But hey, we have Figma Buzz now!


Rebecca Kelleher

I’m still disturbed, disrupted, pickled and peeved about this. Come on Figma! Please fix this!!! +1,000,000,000


Adam Youngers

+1 | How has this not been fixed?  I’m back to using Axure because of this seemingly obvious oversight on Figma’s part.  Wires are useless if you can’t provide context.


Tara_Price2
  • Active Member
  • August 27, 2025

Because of this limitation in annotation, we’re no longer using this incomplete feature and we’re moving this communications outside of the Figma’s suite. T


Zoli
  • New Participant
  • August 28, 2025

has this been resolved since?


adrian_n
  • New Participant
  • August 29, 2025

has this been resolved since?

@Zoli  Unfortunately not, that’s why we should keep this thread alive.


Zoli
  • New Participant
  • August 29, 2025

has this been resolved since?

@Zoli  Unfortunately not, that’s why we should keep this thread alive.


in this case, bump


Figmashley
  • New Participant
  • September 4, 2025

It’s absolutely bonkers to discover that annotations I’ve been adding to designs, tagged with ‘Development’, aren’t even visible in Dev Mode, rendering the entire feature pointless 🤯 This shouldn’t be restricted to certain seats. Back to adding annotations as stickies on the artboard. Following for updates.


  • September 4, 2025

Showstopper currently… Please consider this thread


Marcelo_Venturotti

+1 yes, figma annotations viewable to all!


Piny
  • New Member
  • September 4, 2025

There is no point in using this damn feature if others cant see the damn annotations!


Jenn Tran
  • New Member
  • September 10, 2025

+1 as well! My team has been using the annotation feature for a while only to find out that MOST PEOPLE could not see any notes we intended to show everyone including PMs… so frustrating! 


Josh1107
  • New Member
  • September 11, 2025

Another bump for this. 


Johnny_Morse
  • New Member
  • September 12, 2025

Letting our clients see annotations is incredibly important for getting alignment on designs. Adding to the hundreds of others requesting this feature be open.


Wawa
  • New Participant
  • September 15, 2025

It seems like such a risk to limit visibility of annotations to certain users. It’s a neat feature but I don’t see how this is useful in any way for larger organisations where a good amount of viewers have no need to have a seat.


Rodrigo da Costa

Yeah... they just don't care about what we need... the post was created on July 16, 2024… 


Mario_Noble
  • New Member
  • September 22, 2025

Figma is first and foremost a communication tool. Let us communicate with everyone. Annotations is a key part of this. Paywalling this feature behind a dev or full license is clearly a way to try to drive us towards getting more dev licenses. However, that really leaves a bad taste given this is central to the value prop of creating designs.


Thomas_Nebesar

Please make annotations viewable by all users.


Margot_Gabel
  • Active Member
  • September 23, 2025

+1000 need this 😬. As an admin I keep receiving daily request to Dev Seats from clients...


Krunal Odedra
  • New Member
  • September 26, 2025

Love the feature.  Hate how it was rolled out. Viewers must be able to see annotations. If this isn't a bug, then it's an extremely short-sighted decision, possibly a misguided attempt at monetization.

As someone working for a SaaS company, most of my viewers are internal stakeholders—sales teams, product managers, and executives—none of whom are developers. Expecting them to become developers just to fully understand a project is absurd. And for those working with external clients, this issue is even more frustrating. Under the current setup, you'd have to grant a client developer access just so they can see project annotations, which makes no sense.

While component-based annotations and comments provide a workaround, they are a poor substitute. This approach is frustrating, but at least it doesn’t result in additional charges just to let people see how something is supposed to function. Restricting annotation creation to full and developer subscriptions is understandable, but limiting visibility for viewers? That’s a serious misstep that results in a frustrating and inefficient experience for Figma users.

I share the same frustration Adam, I wish Figma looks into this and fixes, as much as i am happy about this feature, it is as useless for me at the moment. no-viewer access persona can see my annotation. It kind of loses its own purpose.  Like you said, not every on my team ( enterprise) are developers, they are stakeholders who needs to see annotations as well. I can’t be mad enough to buy seat for each individual in my org. It would ridiculously expensive.


Stack Attack
  • New Member
  • September 29, 2025

+1 figma annotations visible to all
PLEASEE


adrian_n
  • New Participant
  • October 1, 2025

 

User Research gone wrong: Where in the world would you find a, say Product Manager, Marketing Responsible or any other kind of non-techie stakeholder actually feeling like “yeah, the DEV Mode, intended to be used by actual developers is the kind of feature that I urgently need – and am willing to pay money for it”?!? I’d really love to see the records of these research interviews :-/