How to Chat in Figma: Real-Time Collaboration Tips

Figma keeps the conversation inside the file. You can type a message that trails your cursor, pin a comment to a frame, or open a live audio call with whoever else has the document open.

Cursor chat is the one people forget about. It’s a real-time messaging feature built into the Figma canvas that lets collaborators type live, temporary text next to their pointer without leaving the file.

Figma documents it alongside comments and audio conversations as one of the ways to communicate inside a shared file. Figma Design and FigJam both support it, which covers most teams working through the same canvas at the same time.

Cursor chat launched in 2021 alongside audio conversations (Figma, 2021), and Figma’s documentation still caps every message at 52 characters.

What Is Cursor Chat in Figma?

You type, and the words appear in a small bubble that follows your pointer around the canvas. That’s the whole feature.

It lives inside the same user interface you’re already working in. Nobody opens a separate app or hunts down a Slack thread to ask whether a button should sit 8px lower. The message rides with your live cursor, visible only to collaborators currently active in that file.

Figma slots this next to the comment tool and audio conversations. Cursor chat handles the passing thought. It was never built to carry a discussion that needs to survive the day.

• Nothing gets stored, so there’s no record to go back to later
• Anyone who isn’t in the file at that exact moment will never see it

Real-time collaboration only works if the message reaches someone who’s actually watching. Cursor chat is built around that one condition and doesn’t pretend otherwise.

How to Turn On Cursor Chat in Figma

Right-click on empty canvas and pick Cursor chat from the menu. Or skip that and press the / key, which is what most people default to after the first week.

Either route drops an empty speech bubble next to your pointer, waiting.

1. Right-click the canvas, or press the / key
2. Choose Cursor chat from the menu, if you used the right-click route
3. Start typing, your text fills the bubble as you go
4. Move the pointer freely, the bubble tracks you while you pan or zoom

No send button. No confirmation step. Whatever you type shows up live, the way it would if you leaned over and pointed at the screen.

Figma lines this up with its other keyboard shortcuts, so reaching for a menu stays optional.

What Are the Rules of Cursor Chat?

A few limits are hardcoded, and none of them show up in settings.

• 52 characters is the hard cap per message (Figma Help Center)
• 5 seconds is how long a finished message stays visible before it fades (Figma Help Center)
• 2021 is the year cursor chat rolled out to every Figma and FigJam file (Figma blog)

You can’t adjust any of it. The numbers are the feature.

Character Limit

Fifty two characters is roughly one short sentence, and nowhere near enough for real design feedback.

Figma capped it there deliberately. This is for a quick question, not a paragraph of notes.

• “can you nudge this 8px left” fits comfortably
• a full explanation of a layout problem does not

Hit the ceiling and the composer just stops accepting characters. No warning, no countdown, it simply stops.

Message Duration

Five seconds after you stop typing, the message fades. Then it’s gone.

There’s no history to scroll back through and nothing saved to the file. Nothing about cursor chat is designed to be searchable later. That’s the tradeoff for a message that costs nothing to send.

Line Breaks

Pressing Enter starts a new line inside the bubble. It doesn’t stack under the first one, though.

Typing on that new line wipes whatever was on the line before it. Only the newest line stays visible.

• Line one shows while you type, then vanishes the second you hit Enter
• Line two takes its place, and so on

Treat it as one message at a time. It isn’t a thread.

Who Can Use Cursor Chat, and in Which Figma Products?

Anyone already inside the file. Figma doesn’t gate it behind a role or a paid plan.

Access Level Needed

Can-view access is enough, and can-edit access obviously works too.

• Viewers get cursor chat without being able to touch the design itself
• Editors get it plus every other tool in the file

Commenting opens up to viewers the same way. Audio needs that same view or edit access, plus a plan that supports it.

To clear a message and start over, press Esc. The bubble wipes instantly, no confirmation.

Where It Works

Figma documents cursor chat separately for Figma Design and FigJam, each with its own help article.

It won’t show up in presentation view, so if you’re walking a client through a flow, save anything you want them to see for the actual canvas.

Worth planning around before you lean on it during client presentations, where a different toolkit takes over anyway.

Cursor Chat vs Comments vs Audio: Which Should You Use?

Remote design teams live and die by how fast a small question gets answered.

Pick based on how long the message needs to matter, not on which tool happens to be closest at hand.

Context switching is the hidden cost. The average knowledge worker already toggles between apps nearly 1,200 times a day, the kind of switching that burns close to 9% of a working year just reorienting (Harvard Business Review, 2022). Staying inside the same file for a quick exchange avoids adding to that count.

Cursor chat is instant, needs zero setup, and leaves nothing behind in the file. The cost is those 52 characters, the five-second lifespan, and no way to revisit it later.

Comments pin to the exact element, thread properly, and are still sitting there at the next design review. They’re slower for a fast back and forth, and they pile up when nobody resolves them.

A comment left on a mockup stays there long after everyone logs off. A five-second cursor chat message never will.

Audio is the fastest way through anything with nuance in it, since you’re not typing at all. It needs a paid plan, and it needs the other person online right then.

A one-line question goes to cursor chat. If the feedback needs to outlive the session, pin a comment instead. And once an explanation runs past two sentences, talking is faster than typing it out.

How to Leave a Comment in Figma

Comments are Figma’s asynchronous option, feedback that survives after everyone closes the file.

1. Click the comment tool in the toolbar
2. Click the exact spot on the canvas, or drag to mark a region
3. Type the note, add an emoji if you want one
4. Post it, Figma pins the comment to that spot

It stays right there, visible to anyone with view or edit access, until someone marks it resolved.

Mentioning a Teammate

Type @ followed by their name inside the comment box, and Figma notifies them directly.

• Works in a new comment or a reply
• The notification goes out immediately, with no digest delay
• Availability can vary slightly by plan and permission level

Fastest way to make sure one specific person actually sees the note, instead of hoping they scroll past it.

Resolving a Comment

Click Resolve once the issue is handled and the pin disappears from the canvas. Hidden, not deleted. Anyone who switches on show resolved comments gets them back.

If pinned notes start cluttering a busy design file, you can hide comments in Figma instead of resolving one thread at a time.

Once every open thread is resolved, the file is usually ready for developer handoff, with nothing left half addressed.

How to Start an Audio Conversation in Figma

Audio, or voice chat if you prefer, covers anything too layered to type.

Hover over your avatar in the toolbar to open the multiplayer tools menu, then click Start conversation. Figma asks for microphone permission the first time. Grant it, your avatar shows you’re live, and anyone else in the file can join.

1. Hover your avatar, open the multiplayer tools menu
2. Click Start conversation and allow microphone access
3. Teammates click Join conversation from the toolbar to hop in
4. Anyone can leave anytime without ending the call for the rest of the group

One conversation per file is the ceiling, so switching between pages during a call never splits the discussion into two threads (Figma Help Center).

Audio runs on desktop and in the browser. Not on mobile, and not inside presentation view.

Turning On Closed Captions

Captions turn spoken audio into live text, useful if you’d rather read along or can’t use sound at that moment.

• In the desktop app, turn captions on from the audio controls during a live conversation
• In the browser, Figma doesn’t caption calls itself, but Chrome’s own Live Caption feature handles it

Turn on Live Caption in Chrome’s settings before joining the call, and it captions whatever audio plays through that tab.

Nobody else in the conversation has to do anything for your captions to work. It’s a setting on your device, not a shared feature.

Which Figma Plan Unlocks Audio Conversations?

Cursor chat and comments work on every plan, Starter included. Audio is the one method that needs an upgrade.

Figma documents audio as a Professional-and-up feature (Figma Help Center). Starter teams can type cursor chat messages and pin comments all day. They just can’t hop on a live call inside the file.

Organization and Enterprise admins get a switch the smaller plans don’t, turning audio off entirely across every file in the org.

• Useful for regulated industries that need to control what gets discussed live
• Applies org-wide, not per file or per person
• Comments are left alone. Cursor chat has a similar on/off switch of its own, but that one belongs to Enterprise admins only, not the Organization tier

A team weighing plans for audio alone should look at the wider gap between free and professional first, since audio is rarely the only feature driving the upgrade.

How to React Without Typing: Stamps, Emotes, and Spotlight in FigJam

FigJam adds reactions and room-steering tools that have nothing to do with cursor chat or comments.

Stripe’s product design team has leaned on FigJam’s playful side to keep remote workshops from feeling flat. Stripe product designer Ryan Ma has credited the platform’s practical-but-playful energy with keeping the team motivated, according to Figma’s own case study.

Guests from outside the company can join in too. Figma lets outsiders contribute to a file free for 24 hours with no login required (Figma).

Stamps and Emotes

Open the stamp wheel from the bottom toolbar, or press E, then pick an icon to drop on the board.

• Stamps stay put, which makes them good for voting or heat-mapping ideas
• Emotes burst and fade, built for a live reaction in the moment
• Click and hold a stamp to resize it for emphasis

The same corner of the toolbar that opens the emote wheel also opens cursor chat. Figma built them as neighbors on purpose.

Spotlight and Following

Click your avatar and choose Spotlight me to pull every viewer’s screen to match yours. Everyone gets a few seconds to opt out before their view jumps automatically.

• Asking another collaborator to take the spotlight usually lands better than grabbing it yourself
• Click someone’s avatar directly to follow just their view, no spotlight involved
• Stop following whenever, without disrupting the person you were watching

Design teams running remote workshops often sketch early wireframe ideas this way, before anything moves into Figma Design proper.

Figma’s own designer survey found 76% of designers using collaborative design tools more often than before (Figma, State of the Designer, 2023). Spotlight and stamps exist to support exactly that.

How to Chat with People Outside Figma: Slack and Other Tools

Figma’s own tools cover the conversation inside a file. Slack covers everything a design team needs to broadcast beyond it.

Install the Figma app in a Slack workspace, connect a Figma account, and updates start arriving.

• By default you get the comments you’re mentioned in, plus invitations to files and projects
• Channel subscriptions let you pick a channel, choose a file or project, and decide what it should post
• It works the same whether the comment came from a teammate or an outside client

A designer publishing a new version can trigger a post to the whole channel automatically. Developers see it the moment a file moves into Dev Mode, without opening Figma first.

None of this replaces cursor chat or comments. It moves the notification outside the file, into a channel more people already have open.

Workers switch between roughly 9 apps a day on average, and 56% feel they have to answer notifications the moment they land, according to Asana’s Anatomy of Work Index. Routing Figma activity into a channel people already watch cuts one more app off the list.

Video calls still have a place. Anything that needs screen sharing beyond the canvas, like comparing a live site against the design, is easier over Zoom than inside any Figma tool.

When Cursor Chat Does Not Work

The conditions have to line up exactly. Both people online, both in the same file, at the same moment.

Miss one and the message never existed as far as the other person is concerned.

• If a teammate is offline, no notification gets sent and nothing waits for them when they log back in
• On a large canvas, the message only shows if their view happens to include your cursor’s location
• Presentation view runs an entirely separate commenting layer, and cursor chat doesn’t carry over to it

Don’t use it for anything time-sensitive that someone might miss. A deadline reminder or an urgent blocker belongs in Slack, or in a comment with their name on it, not in a bubble that vanishes in five seconds.

Comments work without anyone online. Audio wins when a written note would take too long to land.

FAQ on How To Chat In Figma

Does Figma Have Real-Time Chat Like Slack or Discord?

No persistent channel, no. What you get instead is cursor chat for a live temporary message, comments for threaded feedback, and audio conversations for real-time calls, all scoped to whoever is currently open in that file.

Is Cursor Chat Better Than Slack for Quick Questions?

For a question aimed at someone already in the file, cursor chat wins, it’s instant and needs no app switch. For anything the whole team needs to see, or a person who isn’t currently in that file, Slack reaches further.

Can You Use Zoom Alongside Figma?

Yes, and most teams do. Zoom fills the gaps Figma’s tools skip. Recording a walkthrough for people in another time zone. Running a meeting larger than a file’s audio conversation supports. Hosting reviewers who don’t have a Figma seat at all.

What Should You Set Up First With Cursor Chat?

Nothing, really. Cursor chat works the moment two people share a file. The real starting point is a comment convention, agreeing on who pins feedback and when, before headcount on a project passes three or four contributors.

Rough order that works for most teams:

• Leave cursor chat as the default reflex, no setup required
• Set a comment and mention convention before the file gets crowded
• Move to audio once an explanation runs past two sentences

Choosing audio for a fast explanation trades away any written record afterward, since nothing said out loud gets pinned to the file the way a comment does.

Once cursor chat, comments, and audio settle into habit, the next practical step is learning how to create a design system in Figma, where the same conventions carry over to shared components.