“Go to main component” button is gone (read below)

Hi @Gleb thank you for brining this to our attention, I’ve raised this with our engineers. Are you able to invite support-share@figma.com with “can edit” permission to the effected files and share the file links so we can look into this further?

Yep I emailed support after posting this and shared the files.

Having this problem right now! Argh. Thanks for flagging @Gleb.

Got the reasoning from support after a lot of back and fourth, turns out the button disappears for two reasons:

1. You don’t have access to the library — the button disappears so you can’t open the library link.

2. You do have access to the library but only as a Viewer. This one makes zero sense to me so I sent an additional inquiry. Update: it happens because I have access to this library using a public view link but I was not invited to this file directly by email.

The second point seems like quite a big regression for design systems users for example, who usually don’t have edit access to libraries they are using. Also for developers who need to go inspect a whole component set that’s used in the screen.

Also again just showing the button greyed out with an explanation would be a much cleaner and usable solution.

Hi! Is anyone going to solve this problem?

I also have this problem! When will there be a decision?

The solution for me was to move the project to another team because initially it was in the team which doesn’t contain the shared library.

Hi, I also have this issue. And it is really annoying. I think this should have priority.
Because this is what we do right, back and forth between library and prototype…
Any update on when this is solved?

Make sure you have explicit access to the library file and not just access by link (the owner needs to invite you by email), or make sure you are a member of the team/project where this file is.

Figma pretty much said this feature won’t be reverted. Copying response from support:

In regards to this change, the previous way this worked was a security risk as it allowed people to access files that had never been explicitly shared with them. Your suggestion of "when you hover the icon it says “Library is inaccessible” or “Library is missing” or “You don’t have access to this library” sounds like as good suggestion to me, and I’m more than happy to push this as a feature request, however, this will not be reverted.

When users share files, it is not explicit that they’re sharing more than just that specific file. They do not say that they want to share every viewable library connected to that file. If someone does not give explicit access to a file, it is a security risk for us to give that access, even if technically they would have viewer access on that file.

I understand that in a lot of cases, this security risk doesn’t matter that much, and that there are a ton of cases where this is going to be annoying. However, there have been cases where users have explicitly flagged this as a security risk that is a big deal to them and has caused real harm.

Yo Figma?
Where is Button “Go to main component”?
Now, as a user, I must look for what I need visually or by searching the components file separately. If I have more than 1000, what should I do?
This is not serious!!!

Hi! If you switch to “Dev Mode” and select library component, in the right panel show “Go to main component” icon

Hm, I have an UI kit in another project folder set invited only. Then moves instance design file to another project folder and the icon disappear even though I’m the owner of that UI kit. That disappoints me, cuz I’m working on project and will update the UI kit while using it.

Same issue here. In the “Desktop app” the button is gone but in the browser its still there…

Serious issue for me!

Pretty classic bad design decision if you ask me.

There used to be a menu item for this.
Object > Main Component > Go to Main Component.

This option is now gone. I was using an accessibility app to trigger that menu bar command without needing to use my mouse and that doesn’t seem possible anymore. Can we get a keyboard shortcut for “go to main component” please?

I see many people have been asking the same over the years… Hopefully this will get fixed.

https://forum.figma.com/search?q=go+to+main+component+shortcut

The terrible UX downgrade just got even worse with this.

I understand that the Go to Main Component will not come back for all files.

With that said, can you add a feature that tells the designer why he/she cannot access the main component (e.g. “you don’t have access to the component file…”), and where he/she/they can request the Edit permission?

Yes this works!

I have been editing and maintaining the master component library since its creation, so have access and am an editor. But today I created a new Figma file, linked the library, but the “go to component” button does not show. It seems silly that i would have to be invited by email to edit a file i’ve been editing for months, is there something else that needs to happen?

oh wait, suddenly i can edit anymore. even though i’ve been a main editor since the file was created. this is absurd, really. what if the person who created the file is no longer on the team and can’t be communicated with? I also have a vague memory that i created the initial file, a copy was made, and the initial file was deleted in favor of this one. shouldn’t my info be maintained somewhere? Shouldn’t the file have given the owner a message the first time they opened it that they were now the only editor unless permissions were granted again?

Ran into this problem today, where the developer could not see the “Go to Main Component” option listed, even though he had viewer access to both files. The problem appeared to be that the gained access to the Design System file via a link. After manually inviting him to the DS file via email, the problem was solved.

I created the components and now I cannot go to the main component to update numerous instances? Do I understand this is the case? I don’t know what the trigger would be as others have suggested in the replies…

If so this is a big, cumbersome manual set of updates I am in for!

I also encountered this problem. I created a document in the Drafts section and linked it to a library in a specific project. However, the link between components in the file and the components in the library was not displayed. Moving the file from Draft to the project solved the problem. However, this indeed seems like a very strange and non-obvious solution.

Any news on this? Keeps happening for me aswell, whether the file is in the same team and project of the design system file. It is just so random how this go to main component disappears

This is still a very annoying issue.

I can’t go to main component even though the file where this component is was created by me. The issue I guess is in that this file is in a different team from the current file. Both files and teams are owned by me.