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Drew20
Drew20
November 25, 2024

Set default autolayout values

  • November 25, 2024
  • 6 replies
  • 541 views

Often I’m adding autolayout around a frame/component/element, and the default vertical and horizontal padding is 10px. As well, the gap applied is 10px.

It would be amazing to set the default padding and gap to auto-layout elements. This would help with keeping your files clean, but also, to ensure that redundant CSS properties are not added to dev mode output.

Clearing and resetting these properties takes time and often the gap is not cleared due to the property not having an affect on single children.

Thanks!

    6 replies

    KennLucas
    KennLucas
    November 26, 2024

    I just cannot figure out who decided that the default for anything should be 10px.

    No grid anywhere is gonna be base-10. Not done by a designer.

    The default gap between items being 10 is absolutely annoying! Having to delete that and make it zero every time is a waste of my time. And the fact that not everyone on a team WILL be that proper to clear it…makes working with others more challenging.

    Yes to this.

      Taun
      Taun
      New Member
      July 25, 2025

      It’s a feature that makes me think “Am I dumb or is Figma dumb?”

      At the very least there should be a setting to set your default preferences for gap, padding and other properties to ensure a consistent design system. A temporary workaround is to first group your layer and the convert it to Auto-layout to bypass Figma’s initial data. Ie. Ctrl-G and then Shift-A and you’ll have 0px as the initial padding values.

      Blake J Whittaker
      Blake J Whittaker
      New Member
      October 21, 2025

      Is there STILL not a way to override this default behavior? Has anyone found any workarounds? ...besides grouping and then doing autolayout

      jonisco
      jonisco
      New Member
      April 15, 2026

      +1 to remove the auto gap of 10px

      Christian_Heins
      Christian_Heins
      New Participant
      May 5, 2026

      You can set the default “Nudge Amount” in settings to 8. Then also the auto-layout sets gap to 8.
      Then moving objects with shift + arrow uses 8 pixel, and when increasing/decreasing numbers goes in 8-steps.

      jonisco
      jonisco
      New Member
      May 5, 2026

      Thank you Christian 🤙

      Found it: 

      Figma Logo > Preferences > Nudge amount…

      If you change “Big nudge” to 8px it will automatically change the auto layout gap distance to 8px, like Christian said.

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