Why Are Constraints Not Showing in Figma?

Designers coming from the old interface often look for a separate Constraints panel. In UI3 it moved into the Position section of the right sidebar. Select a layer inside a frame and the Constraints control shows there, with a horizontal and a vertical setting.

Figma's help center and the forum threads on missing constraints point to three causes.

1. The layer is inside an auto layout frame

Auto layout positions its children itself, so constraints don't apply there. You control those children with Fixed, Hug and Fill sizing instead; see Fill container vs Hug contents. If you need a child to pin to a corner, you can remove auto layout from the parent with ⌥⇧A / Alt+Shift+A, or free just that child with Ignore auto layout. Figma's help pages don't say whether an Ignore auto layout child gets constraints, so check the Position section after you set it. More in absolute position in Figma.

2. The layer is a top-level frame

A frame sitting directly on the canvas has nothing to be constrained to. Constraints describe how a layer relates to its parent frame, so the option only appears once the layer is nested inside one.

3. You selected a group

Groups don't have constraints of their own. When you set constraints on a group, Figma applies them to the layers inside it. If you want one constraint for the whole unit, frame it instead with ⌥⌘G / Ctrl+Alt+G. The differences are covered in Figma frame vs group.

The horizontal options are Left, Right, Left and right, Center and Scale. The vertical options mirror them for top and bottom.

• Left or Right: the layer keeps its distance from that edge of the frame.
• Left and right: it keeps both distances, so it stretches as the frame gets wider.
• Center: it stays centred relative to the frame.
• Scale: size and position stay as a percentage of the frame. A 70px layer in a 100px frame becomes 140px when the frame is 200px wide.

Set constraints on each child, then drag the frame's edge to test. A header bar set to Left and right stretches with the frame. A close button set to Right stays in the top-right corner. A centred modal set to Center stays in the middle. For layouts where content should reflow rather than stretch, auto layout is the better tool; see how to use auto layout in Figma.

When to use Scale

Scale is the constraint to reach for when a layer should keep its proportion of the frame rather than a fixed distance: a hero image that always covers the left half, or a column that is always a third of the width. Keep in mind that Scale changes the layer's size, not just its position, so text boxes set to Scale get wider along with the frame.

Figma's help center doesn't describe a way to clear constraints, and it doesn't list a keyboard shortcut for them. You change them by picking a different option in the Position section. For a one-off resize that ignores them, hold ⌘ or Ctrl as above.

If you want to resize a whole design in proportion, including strokes and blurs, use the Scale tool (K). It ignores nested constraints and has a multiplier and an anchor box. It can't scale locked layers or layers nested inside instances.