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Move off Figma

Switching tools usually means rebuilding a year of work by hand. It doesn't here. Brilliant imports Figma files directly through two paths, and each Figma page becomes one Brilliant canvas, with components and instances arriving as real, linked components.

This page is the map of the move. Each step links to the page that actually walks you through it.

1. Bring the files over

Two routes, same import pipeline, so the fidelity is identical either way. Pick based on where you're standing:

  • Paste a Figma URL into Brilliant's right toolbar to pull a whole file, specific pages, or one selected subtree. Needs a one-time browser sign-in to Figma.

  • Use the Copy to Brilliant plugin to push a selection from inside Figma onto the canvas you already have open. No sign-in, no API call, no quota: the selection rides over your clipboard.

The full walkthrough, including where imports land and the seat-type rate limit that catches people importing files they don't own, is in Import from Figma. Read the rate-limit section before you start on a shared file: a View or Collab seat on someone else's plan gets six file fetches a month, and the plugin route sidesteps it entirely.

Plenty comes across. Auto layout with its direction, sizing, padding, gap, wrap, and alignment. Vector paths, boolean operations, arcs and rings, per-corner radii. Solid fills, linear, radial, and angular gradients, image fills with their bytes. Drop shadow, inner shadow, layer blur, background blur. Text down to per-character overrides for mixed-style runs. Opacity, blend mode, visibility, masks.

Components survive the trip as components. Include a master and its instances in the same import and the link is preserved, with overrides detected automatically. Variant axes arrive as real, editable component sets, one variant per combination.

If your history is mixed, Sketch files import too: run Import Sketch File, pick which pages you want, and each becomes its own canvas of native elements. SVG, images, and other Brilliant .bl files come in the same way.

2. Point your habits somewhere

Most of what you know transfers. Pages become canvases, frames stay frames, auto layout stays auto layout, component sets keep their variant axes, and Figma's styles and variables land as design system tokens. V, F, R, O, T, P, Cmd+G, Cmd+D, and the align chords are all where you left them.

A handful of things genuinely differ, and knowing them up front saves a confusing first afternoon: selection is grouped per frame, there's no save button, undo is per canvas, and components live on the canvas rather than in a panel. Coming from Figma is the concept-by-concept map and the full shortcut translation, including the ones that changed.

Every shortcut is remappable from the Shortcuts panel with Shift+?, so if a chord you rely on moved, you can put it back rather than relearn it.

3. Know what you're trading

Some things don't come across the wire, and some don't exist on this side at all. Both lists are short and both are written down rather than discovered later.

Doesn't survive the import: non-variant component properties (boolean, text, and instance-swap knobs; variant axes do come through), interactive prototypes, and the bindings back to Figma Variables and shared styles. Resolved values arrive, the links don't. FigJam, Slides, and Dev Mode are out of scope: the plugin runs in the Figma design editor only.

Isn't in Brilliant: interactive prototypes. Brilliant is a static canvas today, with no transitions or clickable hotspots. There's also no swap-instance command; within a component set you flip property dropdowns instead.

It runs the other way too. Brilliant adds a team of agents working inside the canvas, plain-text files that diff in Git, native GPU shaders as first-class fills, ten export formats including code and video, unlimited MCP usage on Free, and no seat charge for the design tool at all. The feature-by-feature account in both directions is in Brilliant vs Figma.

4. You don't have to move all at once

Import is not a one-way door. Brilliant also has Send to Figma, which pushes a selection back to the paired plugin, so a canvas can round-trip while a team is still deciding. Keep a project in both places for a sprint if that's what it takes.

The move is also cheap to try, because the design tool is free: the whole thing, not a trial. Import a file, work in it for a week, and decide with real evidence instead of a feature table.

Your files stay yours the entire time. A Brilliant workspace is a folder on your disk, canvases are plain-text .bl files inside it, and nothing reaches Brilliant's servers until you choose to publish a project. There's no lock-in to escape if you change your mind.

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