How to Find Detached Instances in Figma
Detached instances break your design system's single source of truth. When designers detach components, those elements stop receiving updates—leading to visual inconsistencies that multiply across your product.
Why This Is Challenging
- Detached instances look identical to connected ones—no visual indicator
- Manual inspection requires checking every component individually
- Large files with thousands of components make manual review impractical
- Detached instances spread when designers copy-paste affected frames
Manual Method: Instance Inspection
- 1Select a frame or component you want to check
- 2Look at the right sidebar—connected instances show the component name with a link icon
- 3Detached elements appear as regular frames/groups without the component indicator
- 4Use Figma's search (Ctrl/Cmd + F) to find frames that should be component instances
- 5Compare found frames against your component library to identify detachments
- 6Repeat for every section of your file
Automated Detection with ComponentQA
ComponentQA scans your entire Figma file and identifies every detached instance in seconds. Each issue includes a deep link that opens Figma directly to the problem location.
- Scan files with thousands of components in under 30 seconds
- Get exact counts and locations of every detached instance
- Deep links jump directly to issues in Figma—no searching required
- Track detachment trends over time to catch problems early
- Run audits on schedule to prevent accumulation