Figma comments not showing on Mac: causes and fixes for designers in 2026

A comment you left this morning is gone from the canvas. Or it sits on the wrong frame, far from the layer it was about. Most of the time nothing was deleted. A setting hid the comment, or it attached to a different layer than you expected. This page shows how to tell those cases apart, and what to try next.

Start with one question: hidden or misplaced?

Check whether the comment is missing from the canvas only, or from the sidebar too. Figma's help center says a comment you cut and paste stays visible in the sidebar. So a sidebar comment with no pin is misplaced. A comment missing from both places is hidden, resolved or never posted. That split tells you which fix to try first, and it saves you from reworking a file for nothing.

Hidden comments: Shift+C and the resolved filter

Shift+C is the first thing to check. It toggles comments on or off on the canvas, and comments are visible by default. If your pins vanished after a keypress, press Shift+C again. It is easy to hit that shortcut by accident while you type in a file. The result looks exactly like lost feedback.

Resolved comments are the second cause. When someone marks a comment Resolved, Figma hides it from the right sidebar and the canvas. Nothing was deleted. Press C to enter comment mode, open the sidebar filter menu, and turn on the Show resolved comments toggle. The resolved threads come back into view, so you can read what was decided.

Misplaced comments: attachment rules and cut and paste

Figma attaches a comment to a top-level frame, component or group. You pin it inside that container, or you select a region in it. Comments do not attach to nested frames, components, groups or other layers. So a note meant for a price label inside a card can end up tied to the whole card. Drag the card, and the comment goes with it.

Cut and paste causes the worst misplacement. Cut a layer or frame with ⌘X, then paste it with ⌘V somewhere else, and Figma disconnects its comments. They stay in the sidebar, but they no longer point at anything on the canvas. Use Move to page instead, because it keeps comments with the layer. If you already pasted, press ⌘Z before you change anything else.

Here is a worked example. A reviewer leaves a handful of notes on a checkout screen. Two of them target a price label nested inside a card, so they land on the card instead. Your designer then moves the card into a new section by cutting and pasting. Now every note is cut loose from the canvas. The fix is to move the card with Move to page, then pin the two notes again on the top-level frame. Name the layer in the note text, so the next person can find it.

What missing feedback costs you

Nobody has measured the exact hours designers lose to missing comments. Public research is thin. The closest number comes from a vendor survey. CoLab, a software vendor, commissioned a survey of 250 employees, half engineering managers and directors and half VPs or C-level leaders. It found that 43% of design review feedback is never tracked or addressed. The sample was not designers, and the survey was not independently audited. Treat it as a signal, not a measurement.

Wages give you a rough price tag. The BLS reports a May 2025 median of $62,960 for graphic designers. Divide that by the 2,080 hours in a full-time year and you get about $30.27 an hour. That hourly figure is derived, not a BLS number. At that rate, every 15 minutes spent re-finding a comment costs about $7.57 in wages. Multiply your own minutes by your own rate and the number gets personal fast.

Money is the smaller cost. A missed note usually surfaces late, at developer handoff or in a review meeting. Then someone rebuilds a screen that was already approved. Your team pays twice, once for the design and once for the fix. Reviewers also stop writing notes when they see them vanish. That pattern is worth watching, but no study I could open measures it directly.

Symptoms, causes and first checks

Start with the first two checks in the table, because they cost nothing to try. Most people find the problem in one of the first two rows. Only move on to attachment rules when the comment is still on the canvas in the wrong place.

Fixes you can use today, without buying anything

1. Press Shift+C and check the canvas. Comments are visible by default, so a switched-off state is an easy miss.
2. Press C, open the sidebar filter menu, and turn on Show resolved comments.
3. Select the top-level frame, component or group, then pin the comment inside it. Name the layer in the note.
4. Move layers between pages with Move to page, not ⌘X and ⌘V.
5. If you already pasted, press ⌘Z before you change anything else.
6. Keep the sidebar as your checklist. Resolve a comment only after the change is in the file.
7. Split large reviews. Figma allows 100 comments per hour per user, including replies.
8. When someone needs a fixed copy, export the frame and annotate it in Preview.

Keep resolved comments in the file. Do not delete them as you go. The resolved set works as an audit trail. Show it with the filter whenever a stakeholder asks whether a point was addressed. That habit costs nothing and answers the question in seconds.

Preview as a frozen review copy

Apple Preview works well for a review copy that people can still annotate. Open the exported file, choose the Note tool in the Markup toolbar, and drop a note. Control-click a note to change its colour. Drag it to move it. Use File > Save, Export or Export to PDF to keep the notes editable. Use File > Print > Save as PDF when you want a snapshot, because that flattens the notes so nobody can change them.

Where Lazur helps, and where it does not

Lazur is a voice assistant for the Mac. Hold ⌥ ⌘ to ask about anything on screen, and Lazur answers out loud. Ask where the Show resolved comments toggle is, and Lazur draws a circle and a label around it. Ask for steps, and Lazur guides you one click at a time, waiting for each click. It does not click buttons, edit your file or operate Figma for you.

Lazur also helps with the parts of this problem that happen outside the canvas. Hold fn to dictate a clear reply to a reviewer, and the text lands at your cursor in any app, including Slack. You read it and send it yourself. Lazur listens and looks at the screen only while you hold the shortcut. Audio and screenshots go to AI providers to answer, and they are not stored.

Mistakes that keep comments missing

• Rebuilding a design when the comment was only hidden by Shift+C or the filter.
• Pasting frames into a new page with ⌘V and assuming the comments followed.
• Pinning notes on nested layers, then wondering why they moved with the card.
• Deleting resolved comments to tidy up, which removes the record of decisions.
• Blaming Figma before checking Shift+C and the resolved filter.
• Posting a long review in one burst and losing track of what went through.

A feedback routine that survives the next review

Set one rule for the team. Comments go on top-level frames, components or groups, never on nested layers. Use Move to page for any reshuffle. Resolve a comment only after the change is in the file. Those three habits cover most of the problems above, and they take a minute to explain.

When a comment really is gone

Sometimes the feedback never reached Figma. A reviewer may have written it in Slack, email or on a call, and those notes stay outside the file. Ask reviewers to post in Figma instead. Paste the key points into a comment on the top-level frame, with a link back to the thread. Check your hourly count before you repost, because the limit counts every post, including replies.

If the steps above fail, write down the file name, the page, the frame and the time you posted. Those details make any support request faster to answer. Then check Figma's help center pages in the sources list, because Figma updates its comment features over time.