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Private Comments / "Only me" visibility for personal comments on canvas

  • July 31, 2026
  • 1 reply
  • 25 views

Lior Nguyen

Hey everyone!

I know this isn't a brand new idea and I've seen other designers ask for this over the years. But since it still hasn't been implemented, I wanted to bring it up again to give it a fresh push because we honestly need it more than ever.

I love the current commenting system for team collab, but we are really missing a "Private Comment" or "Only Me" visibility option. Basically, a comment that only the author can see, edit, and resolve.

Here’s why this is still a huge pain point in our daily workflow:

  • A safe space for messy thoughts: When working on a file that's actively shared with clients or developers, I often want to drop a quick reminder for myself (e.g., "fix this alignment later," "try another color here," or even a drafted reply). I don’t want stakeholders to see my raw thought process or get confused by notes meant strictly for me.

  • Preventing accidental deletions: We’ve all been there. You leave a crucial mental note on a frame, and a collaborator or client sees it, doesn't understand the context and casually hits "Resolve". And note gone =((. A private comment ensures no one else can touch it.

  • Contextual To-Do lists without the clutter: Instead of keeping a separate Notion doc or physical sticky notes on my desk, I can pin my private to-dos exactly on the UI component they belong to. It keeps my workflow centralized without cluttering the canvas for others.

Right now, the only workaround is dragging an ugly, giant text layer off-canvas to take notes, which is super inefficient. Figma team, please make this happen!

1 reply

guna_desk
  • New Participant
  • August 10, 2026

Adding a couple of angles to ​@Lior Nguyen’s points:

A dedicated "My notes" filter. Beyond just hiding them from others, it'd be great to filter the comment panel to show only my private notes, so I can run a self-review pass before sharing and clear them one by one, like a personal checklist tied to the actual frames.

Handoff / review use case. As a file owner doing final QA before dev handoff, I want to leave myself "double-check this state" markers that don't confuse developers reading the same file. Right now those markers either leak to the team or live in a separate doc that drifts out of sync.

The off-canvas text-layer workaround is exactly what I do too, and it's messy. Would love to see native support for author-only comment visibility. 🙏