How to Use Groups in Figma

What Are Groups in Figma?

Groups in Figma, like other design tools, enable you to combine multiple elements as a singular top-level layer. The boundaries of the group are set by the children elements, resizing or moving those elements will cause the group’s boundaries to shift automatically. Either growing in size or shrinking.

It’s important to note that all of the grouping functionality listed below is available when you select multiple elements. This is very efficient and will allow you to edit a bunch of similar elements at the same time, even taking advantage of Smart Selections.

You will no longer be able to edit this unofficial “group” once you click away.

While groups can contain other sub groups, a singular element will only be a part on one group at a time. If you try to add a grouped element to another group it will just appear in that new group.

How to Create a Group

You can create a group two ways. Either hold shift and click on each object one by one or by clicking and dragging over all the desired objects. You only need to touch the object with the cursor to include it in your selection.

Once you have your objects selected you can use the keyboard shortcut to group objects together by pressing: ⌘ + G (Mac) or Ctrl + G (Win).

Grouping can be found in the menu popup as well if you right click on your selection.

How to Ungroup Elements

Groups are non destructive in Figma, it will not permanently flatten/combine the layers or elements together.

If you need to ungroup elements just press – ⌘ + Shift + G (Mac) or Ctrl + Shift G (Win).

You can also right click on the group and select ungroup from the popup menu.

How to Use Groups

Group are extremely useful as you create your designs as they allow for the combining of similar elements together for easier layer management. For example, you could have buttons within a section and will stay together. By grouping them together, your essentially creating a single layer that can be named to reflect its containing elements.

To name a group just double click on the group’s automatic name in the layers panel. You will be able to type whatever you want. Be sure to make the groups name meaningful to the children elements within. Something you and potentially others can understand when quickly viewing the design.

Editing Within Groups

Grouped elements are not permanently set in place once you group them together. Clicking on the group allows you to move the whole group as one anywhere in your design. Same goes for rotating and resizing, if you hold down SHIFT and click on a corner you will resize everything scale proportionately.

When resizing a group pay extra attention to text, effects, and strokes as they will not scale. To scale these any of these elements you need to use the scale tool( K ).

If you need to edit just one element within a group, just double click on it and you are free to edit as if it was just single element. If you move the element far enough it will create a new boundary for the group.

You have access to features like the Smart Selections inside of the group. This will allow you to auto adjust multiple elements at the same time. You can easily change the spacing between them and even reposition and change the order.

Do note that there has to be at least 3 elements and the spacing already uniform for Smart Selections to be an option.

Adding to Groups

It is possible to add to a group but only by selecting the element in the layers panel and dragging it into your desired group. If you you were to try to use the keyboard shortcut you would actually create a group within the selected group.

Essentially creating a new parent group of all the elements, a sub group of the original elements and the added element inside of the parent only.

Conclusion

Groups are an extremely powerful way to manage and maintain order within your design project in Figma. By understanding how they work and the keyboard shortcuts you can take full advantage of their potential.

Groups make it easy to move, resize, and change similar elements all at once while still allowing for easy access to single element editing.