Why Is My Layout Grid Not Showing in Figma?

Both names point at the same feature. Figma's help center says the "layout grid" was renamed "layout guide" in May 2025, so tutorials written before then use the old name and the sidebar uses the new one. You add one by selecting a frame and clicking + next to Layout guide; how to add a grid in Figma walks through the settings.

If you were looking for the grid that arranges layers into rows and columns, that's the Grid flow in auto layout, a different feature with its own settings. It doesn't show an overlay at all. See the auto layout grid.

Figma's own help pages disagree on the key. The Create layout guides page says Shift + G. The Zoom and view options page says Control + G on Mac and Ctrl + Shift + 4 on Windows. If one does nothing, try the other.

The most common slip is pressing the wrong modifier. On Mac, ⌘G (Command) groups your selection; the guides toggle is ⌃G (Control). On Windows, Ctrl + G groups too, so it will never toggle guides there. If your layers suddenly sit inside a new group, undo with ⌘Z / Ctrl + Z and use the right key. If undo doesn't respond, see Figma undo not working.

A keyboard layout other than US QWERTY can also break these keys. Figma shortcuts not working covers setting your real layout, and Figma grid shortcuts lists the pixel grid keys, which are a separate toggle.

No. Layout guides only work on frames, and components count as frames. Groups and sections have no Layout guide section in the sidebar, which is why the + button seems to be missing. Select the group, press ⌥⌘G / Ctrl + Alt + G to frame it, and add the guide to the new frame. Frame vs group explains what else changes when you do.

Two switches control a guide: the per-frame eye icon and the global toggle. Only someone with edit access can change the eye icon. If the designer hid a frame's guide, a developer in Dev Mode or a viewer can't turn it back on. Ask the designer to leave the eye on for frames that need a grid.

Once the eye is on, viewers can show or hide guides themselves with the Layout guides option in the Zoom/view options menu or the shortcut above. Forum answers going back to 2022 report the same arrangement.

Prototypes are different. Layout guides are an editing aid, and Figma's help pages don't describe a way to show them in presentation view. If reviewers need to see the columns in a prototype, draw them as real rectangles on a layer you can hide later.

Layers snap to the layout guide of the frame they sit in, and only that frame. Figma Community Support confirmed on the forum in 2023 and again in January 2024 that nested frames don't snap to a guide two or more levels up. A card inside a section frame inside a page frame ignores the page's 12 columns. The fix is to give the inner frame its own guide, or save the grid as a layout guide style and apply it to each level.

• The parent uses auto layout. Auto layout positions its children itself, so dragging them doesn't snap to columns. Use the auto layout Grid flow for content that should sit in cells.
• You're holding Control. Holding Control pauses snapping to objects and geometry while you drag, on Mac and Windows.
• Snap settings are off. Check Main menu → Preferences for Snap to objects and Snap to pixel grid. Figma snapping explains each one.
• The guide is hidden. Turn it back on with the toggle above and test again, so you can see what the layer should be snapping to.

If you came here from a constraints search, the two work together. With a Stretch column guide, Figma applies a layer's constraints relative to the columns, so a layer set to Left and right stretches with its column when the frame resizes. With a fixed guide (Left, Center or Right), constraints are measured from the frame, not the guide. If the Constraints control itself is missing, that's a different problem, covered in Figma constraints not showing.