Figma → After Effects

Figma to After Effects.
One click. Fully editable.

Motion designers waste hours recreating Figma screens in After Effects before they can animate them. UI Flow bridges the two: select a frame, hit Send to Ae, and it rebuilds as native, layered, vector-editable comps — ready to animate immediately.

Looping demo of “Send to Ae” in action

Stop rebuilding screens by hand

Importing Figma as PNG or SVG gives you flat, uneditable junk. UI Flow gives you real layers.

✕ Before

Hours of manual rebuilding

Flat PNG/SVG imports. Strokes, gradients, corner radii, and masks break or vanish. You recreate every layout by hand before you can even start animating.

✓ After

One click, fully layered

Select your frame, click Send to Ae, and your design appears as native AE shape, text, and image layers — pixel-accurate and ready to animate.

See it in action

Select in Figma → Send to Ae → watch the layers panel fill with real shape & text layers, then animate.

30–60s screen recording: Figma → Ae → animate
In Figma

Built into your design tool

Prep and send your work without leaving Figma.

🚀

Send to Ae

Exports the selected frame or layers straight to After Effects.

🧼

Prep for AE

Cleans a frame for export — removes Auto Layout, detaches components & styles, deletes hidden layers.

🪞

Send with reference

Adds a 50%-opacity reference guide layer to trace over while animating.

🖼️

Send only reference

Sends just a guide image — no layer data — when that's all you need.

🧱

Rasterize layer

Flag any layer to export as a flat PNG when you want it baked.

In After Effects

Rebuilt faithfully, layer by layer

The importer is smart, not dumb — it reconstructs your design instead of flattening it.

🔷

Vector shapes

Rectangles, ellipses, and custom paths become editable shape layers.

🔤

Editable text

Text stays as live, editable text layers — not images.

🌈

Gradients

Linear & radial gradients with correct opacity, intact.

✏️

Per-side strokes

Top/bottom/left/right strokes auto-outlined into shapes (AE can't do partial strokes natively), plus inside/outside alignment.

Corner radius & arcs

Mixed, independent corners and arcs outlined to clean vector.

Effects

Drop shadows, inner shadows, and gaussian / motion / radial blur rebuilt as real AE effects — plus masks, blend modes & opacity.

UI Flow Tools panel

More than import — a workflow toolkit

UI Flow ships a separate “UI Flow Tools” utility panel — the repetitive After Effects chores, one click each.

1

Enable / Disable 3D

Toggles 3D on the selected layer and every nested layer inside precomps — the whole tree at once.

Shift+click to disable
2

Collapse Transformations

Turns on continuous rasterization / collapse transforms recursively, keeping vectors crisp when scaling.

Shift+click to uncollapse
3

Smart Precomp

Precomps your selected layers in one step — great for prepping lots of elements to animate.

Shift+click = one precomp per layer
4

Expand Precomp

The reverse — explodes a precomp back into its individual layers. AE has no native un-precomp.

5

Crop Precomp to Content

Resizes a precomp's canvas to tightly fit its content — exact bounds via real world-matrix math, no wasted space.

6

Null Creator

Creates a null at the layer's anchor point for parenting & rigging.

Shift = null per layer · Alt = classic AE null
The panel is fully undockable — pop it out as its own floating window — and has a one-click reset.

How it works

From a finished Figma design to editable AE layers in three steps.

1

Install

Add the Figma plugin and the After Effects extension (ZXP).

2

Send to Ae

Open both, select your frame in Figma, and click Send to Ae.

3

Animate

Your design appears as editable layers in AE — start animating.

⚠️ Keep both plugins open during a send, and install the matching fonts in After Effects so text renders correctly.

“But will it actually look right?”

Yes. Here's what comes across intact, every time.

Shapes
Text
Gradients
Strokes
Corner radius
Masks
Shadows
Blur

Compatibility & install

Works with After Effects CC 2019 (16.x) through AE 2026 and newer — Windows & macOS.

Install steps

  1. Install the After Effects extension using a ZXP installer.
  2. Install the UI Flow Figma plugin from the Figma community / plugin link.
  3. Open After Effects and run the UI Flow panel.
  4. In Figma, select a frame and click Send to Ae.
Tip: install the same fonts in AE that your Figma design uses, so text renders correctly.

Troubleshooting

  • The After Effects plugin must be running when you send.
  • Allow scripts to write files in AE preferences (Scripting & Expressions).
  • Auto Layout frames? Run Prep for AE in Figma first.
  • Missing fonts in AE will show fallback text — install the fonts and re-send.

Pricing

UI Flow is completely free — no license, no limits.

Free
No license · No limits · Just download and use it.
Download UI Flow ☕ Buy me a coffee

Frequently asked questions

Which After Effects versions are supported?
UI Flow works with After Effects CC 2019 (16.x) all the way through AE 2026 and newer, on both Windows and macOS.
Does text stay editable?
Yes. Text comes across as live, editable text layers in After Effects — not flattened images — so you can restyle and animate it freely.
Why do I need to install fonts in After Effects?
After Effects renders text using fonts installed on your system. If a font from your Figma design isn't installed in AE, text falls back to a default. Install the matching fonts and your text renders exactly as designed.
Does it work on both Mac and Windows?
Yes — UI Flow runs on both macOS and Windows.
Is it really free?
Completely free. No license and no limits. If it saves you time, you're welcome to buy me a coffee — but it's optional.
Does it work with Auto Layout?
Run Prep for AE on your frame first. It removes Auto Layout, detaches components and styles, and cleans hidden layers so the export comes across cleanly.

Download UI Flow free

Skip the rebuild. Bring your Figma screens into After Effects as editable layers and start animating.