Plugins That Earn Their Keep
Figma’s built-in features cover a lot of ground, but repetitive tasks still eat up surprising amounts of time. The plugin ecosystem fills that gap, though finding the right tool can be its own chore given how basic the in-app search is. The plugins below are the ones that have made the biggest difference in day-to-day work — not the flashiest, but the ones that handle the tedious parts in bulk.
Three patterns separate the genuinely useful plugins from the rest. They can generate placeholder content at scale, organize layers at scale, or restyle elements at scale. If a plugin does one of those well, it’s worth installing.
Similayer: Select What You Mean
When to use it: Any time you need to select more than four or five layers that share styles — whether they’re components, text, frames, or images.
The problem it solves: Multi-selecting layers across nested groups with Shift and the cursor is fiddly and error-prone. The more layers you need, the more time you waste. Similayer replaces that guesswork with precise selection criteria.
- Select similar layers using very specific properties — style, name, type, or a combination of conditions.
- Scope the search to the entire page or a single frame.
Common uses in a typical workflow include grabbing every instance of a component inside a frame, selecting all text layers with a specific weight or size, and finding every layer with the same name on a page. The plugin is flexible enough that the options are nearly limitless, which makes it a natural first step before running batch edits.
Pro tip: To select elements inside only a few top-level frames out of many on a page, wrap the frames you care about in a temporary parent frame. Then use the “Limit selection within root frame” option to keep the selection inside that wrapper.
Content Reel: Realistic Placeholder Data
When to use it: Any time you need more than a couple of realistic placeholder items — addresses, phone numbers, names, avatars, or any kind of text or image set.
The problem it solves: Inventing dummy content by hand is slow, and recycling (555) 555-5555 down a table column does not make a design feel real. This plugin pulls structured content from data sets and inserts it directly into your layers.
- Built-in content sets cover the basics out of the box.
- Custom sets can be created for niche use cases, kept private, or published for others.
- Image sets are supported in addition to text, making avatar and photo placeholders easy.
One example of the custom set feature in action: a conference room booking app project used a hand-made set of amenities — WiFi, TV, outlets, coffee maker — randomly inserted into room listings. Similarly, a default avatar set works fine, but swapping in professional headshots from Unsplash made the mockups more credible.
Pro tip: When creating a content set, you get the choice to keep it private or publish it directly from the plugin for your team or the wider community.
Change Text: Batch Find and Replace
When to use it: Whenever a string of text appears across multiple layers and needs to be updated — fixing a typo that was copy-pasted dozens of times, swapping a client’s company name, or changing a button label from “Create” to “Add” globally.
- Acts like Figma’s native batch rename tool, but for text content.
- Uses
$&to insert the current text value, mirroring the rename tool’s syntax. - Only touches layers that are currently selected — useful when you want to limit the scope of the change.
A well-maintained component library reduces the need for this kind of tool, but most projects have at least some legacy structure where text lives directly in instances or detached layers. This plugin makes cleanup fast.
Pro tip: Run Similayer first to select all target text layers — for instance, using the “Text characters” option when the string is identical everywhere — and then let Change Text do the replacement.
Lorem Ipsum: Flexible Dummy Copy
When to use it: Any time you need placeholder text, whether for a quick sketch or while waiting for final copy from a client.
The problem it solves: Writing out fake content by hand is a waste of effort. This plugin generates text quickly, but with meaningful controls over how much you get.
- Choose the number of words, sentences, or paragraphs.
- Generate multiple text boxes in one pass, each with unique content.
- Auto-generate mode fills a text layer based on its current dimensions.
The auto-fill feature stands out, especially when working with auto-layout components that would otherwise resize based on their content. Generated content does not always need to start with the classic “Lorem ipsum” either, which keeps things fresh.
Pro tip: Pair the auto-generate option with the Redacted font to fill layers without the distraction of readable text — useful when you want to test a layout without anyone parsing the copy.
Batch Organizing With Design System Organizer
Design System Organizer is a paid plugin ($2.99 for a lifetime license, with a 30-day free trial per file) that targets a less frequent but painful task: keeping component libraries tidy. It shines when you are starting a new component library, customizing a cloned library, or working in a file with many local styles and components.
The plugin lets you rename, delete, and reorganize components in bulk. It works across all style types—text, color, fill, effect, and grid. Style names containing multiple slashes are automatically sorted into subfolders inside the plugin, which makes large hierarchies easier to navigate.
It is particularly useful for cleaning up libraries cloned from the Figma Community. Community files are usually well structured, but the naming conventions may not match your own. Instead of adapting to someone else's system, you can quickly rename and re-categorize assets into a structure you already know.
Another good use case: deleting styles in bulk. Unlike components, Figma does not allow multi-selecting styles, so removing more than a few manually is slow. Design System Organizer lets you multi-select and remove styles in one pass.
Speeding Up Plugin Access
Even the best plugin loses value if opening it takes several clicks. Figma offers a few built-in shortcuts that beat navigating nested menus.
Search to Open
Press Cmd + / (or Ctrl + / on Windows) to open the Search menu, type the plugin's name, and press Enter.
Reopen the Last Used Plugin
Press Cmd + Opt + P (or Ctrl + Alt + P on Windows) to instantly reopen the most recently used plugin. This is handy when you repeatedly use the same tool, such as Similayer.
Create a Custom Shortcut on macOS
For your most frequent plugins, you can assign a dedicated keyboard shortcut on a Mac:
- Open System Preferences → Keyboard → Shortcuts → App Shortcuts.
- Click the “+” at the bottom left of the list.
- Choose Figma from the Applications dropdown.
- Enter the plugin's name exactly as it appears in Figma (for example, Similayer).
- Assign a keyboard shortcut and click “Add”.
- Use the shortcut to run the plugin in Figma.
This method works for any menu item in Figma, not just plugins.
Plugins Still Fill the Gaps
Figma's native features have improved recently—announcements from Config Europe 2020 pointed to more automation on the way. However, plugins continue to cover the workflows that native functionality has not yet absorbed. The Figma Community hosts a large library of such tools, and spending time to learn a few workflow-oriented plugins will pay off in reduced repetition. Checking the Figma Community Files regularly can also surface new resources for projects and processes.
