iPhone guide (Alpha)

Folio’s iPhone support is Alpha, distributed through TestFlight on iOS 26 or later; the App Store release is iPad only. Folio loads Figma’s own website and requests its desktop version, as Safari’s Request Desktop Website does. Your Figma account and file permissions still decide what you can open and edit. There is no public release download yet. See getting started for installation and sign-in.

Home, top bar and tabs

Home shows Figma’s file browser with Folio’s top bar visible. In compact file tabs the top bar starts hidden and the bottom controls start visible. In portrait, use the floating Show toolbar control to reveal Home, the current tab title and tab count, and ⋯. Showing or hiding the top bar sets your portrait file preference. In landscape, use the top bar toggle in the bottom bar; revealing it there does not change that portrait preference.

Tap the title to open the tab list. Select a file, swipe to close an unpinned tab, swipe right to pin or unpin it, or drag to reorder. The list also offers New Design file, Open link and Reopen closed tab. Use Open link for a file URL if Home does not offer the route you need. iPhone has no New window or Move to window command, including on an unfolded Duo. Back, Forward, Reload and Downloads are in ⋯.

Automatic memory policy keeps one live file plus Home; other tabs reload when selected. Settings > General also offers a two-file cap. Unloading keeps the tab, but a reload can lose transient editor state.

Touch and zoom

Regular iPhones use Touch Only, with no touch-mode picker. One finger on the canvas selects, moves or draws; hold still for about half a second for a context menu. Two fingers pan and pinch to change canvas zoom. Panels use native finger scrolling. See input controls for gesture details.

Interface zoom starts at 100% when you have no saved choice. Change it in ⋯ or Settings > Display. It scales the interface separately from the design’s canvas zoom. Compact and expanded Duo layouts each keep their own explicit zoom choice, both defaulting to 100%; rotating, folding or resizing does not save a new value. Phone toolbar controls keep at least their 100% size when you reduce interface zoom.

Canvas and panels

While Folio’s bottom toolbar is shown in compact Design files, Phone panel layout uses Figma’s own Minimize UI control for a canvas-first view and hides its navigation rail and floating tool bar. If the button is unavailable, Folio has a bounded fallback using Figma’s Shift+Command+Backslash shortcut; acceptance of that fallback on a signed-in device is unverified. Folio respects your own Minimize/Expand choice. Expanding through Figma’s control opens the Layers sheet; closing it through Folio returns to the canvas-first view.

In portrait, Layers and Properties stay fixed at the left of Folio’s bottom bar. Tap either to open that panel as a full-width bottom sheet, one at a time. Tap the lit button again to close it. Drag the grab bar to change the sheet height, from about a quarter to 85% of the browser height. The initial height is half the browser, and your adjustment lasts for the window’s session. Properties shows Figma’s Inspect panel in Dev Mode and keeps the sheet open when you switch modes.

Canvas beside panels is on by default. It keeps the canvas visible above a sheet by giving Figma a wider layout viewport and clipping the off-screen sidebar space. Closing a sheet retains that wider viewport to avoid repeated canvas relayout. Turning the switch off uses the simpler Minimize/Expand layout, which can leave an empty area above an open sheet.

In landscape, with Canvas beside panels on, Layers opens on the left and Properties or Inspect on the right at Figma’s own widths. Both can be open. Folio compensates for the canvas shift when Layers opens or closes, but that correction remains unverified on a signed-in device. Layers stays at the left end of the bar and Properties at the right; edit commands, Keys and the top bar toggle sit between them. With the switch off, landscape uses the portrait-style bottom sheet. Rotating carries an open sheet to its side panel, or a side panel to the sheet. Properties takes precedence if both sides are open when you return to portrait.

The floating tool pill sits above the bar in both orientations, centred over the canvas between open side panels in landscape. Above a portrait sheet it follows the grab bar as you drag. Recognised Figma popovers hide the pill and grab bar; the keyboard hides the pill. A sheet that leaves too little canvas height also hides the pill.

Tools and editing keys

Tap a pill tool to send its standard Figma shortcut. The button lights immediately, then follows Figma’s reported active tool. Tap the lit group again to cycle its variants; tap its chevron or touch and hold to choose from the menu. Switching to another group selects the variant that group last showed.

Image or video… is in the Rectangle menu but outside its cycle. Polygon and Star have no default shortcut, so the pill does not offer them. Hide Folio’s bottom toolbar to use Figma’s own tool bar for those.

The Design | Dev switch stays pinned at the right of the pill while tools scroll sideways. Tap the other side to switch with Shift+D; tapping the selected side does nothing. If Folio cannot detect the mode, neither side is selected and either side sends the toggle. Dev Mode shows Move, Measurement, Annotation and Comment. Dev Move has no Hand or Scale variants. Measurement and Annotation shortcut acceptance, Actions and Image or video… remain unverified on a signed-in iPhone. Tool cycling and reconciliation with hardware-keyboard tool changes still need hands-on acceptance beyond the captured Hand/Scale/Move states.

The bottom bar scrolls Undo, Redo, Cut, Copy, Paste, Duplicate, Select all, Group, Ungroup, Frame selection and Keys. Tap Keys for Shift, Control, Option, Command and a flick arrow row. Tap a modifier to toggle it on (solid blue); tap again to turn it off. It stays on across actions. Hold a modifier to use it while pressed; releasing the hold restores its previous toggle state. Flick the arrow in a direction; hold to repeat. Tap Keys again to close the row and release held modifiers. These modifiers also apply to pill shortcuts. See keyboard shortcuts for native tab and display commands.

Number keyboard

With Number keyboard for numeric fields on, recognised numeric panel fields such as X or W open the decimal keypad. A row above it provides ±, −, +, ×, ÷, %, and a decimal point. ± changes the leading sign; × and ÷ type the ordinary expression characters * and /. Use the accessory bar’s Done button or move to another field to finish. Acceptance of expressions, sign changes and Done in every field remains unverified on a signed-in device.

Names, hex colours, search fields and canvas text keep the normal keyboard without this row. While a portrait sheet field has focus, Folio scrolls the field’s own panel container into view and raises the sheet if needed. The sheet, grab bar and key row jump once to their final positions while the keyboard animates; the sheet returns to your height when editing ends. Single-jump focus has a device confirmation. Text-keyboard alignment, field dropdowns, landscape editing and zoom values other than 100% still need acceptance.

Folded and unfolded Duo (Alpha)

A folded Duo, or any Duo window with compact width or height, uses the compact phone controls. A roomy regular-width, regular-height unfolded window uses the iPad-style tab strip, full bottom toolbar and Figma’s own panels and tool bar, including its own Dev Mode switch. Folding or unfolding changes the controls without replacing or reloading the file and releases held keys. The compact and expanded zoom choices stay separate.

Touch Only remains the default. Touch-mode and Pencil choices appear after Folio observes an unfolded regular-width/regular-height phone window or an Apple Pencil touch. Their presence does not verify Pencil capabilities. Physical Duo folding, reserved screen regions, Pencil, pointer input and real-file memory behavior are unverified.

Settings and recovery

Open ⋯ > Settings for Display’s interface zoom, top toolbar and bottom toolbar controls, or General’s tab restoration and memory policy. Settings and Developer Tools show one section at a time on compact phones; use Back for the section list. Developer Tools opens from ⋯ or Option+Command+I on a hardware keyboard.

Developer Tools > Input contains these phone switches, all on by default:

These input switches affect the selected and future tabs; already-open sibling tabs keep their snapshots. Hiding Folio’s bottom toolbar also removes its pill and restores Figma’s rail and tool bar, leaving Figma’s current Minimize/Expand state intact. Safe mode disables the phone adaptations. See troubleshooting for reloads, focus and local reports.

Known limits and device evidence

Figma’s documented phone support does not guarantee desktop editing. A desktop request does not bypass restrictions, grant permissions or establish support for every file route. Google sign-in is blocked in the embedded browser, and a Safari session does not sign Folio in. Internet access is required.

The iPhone 16 Pro evidence confirms the minimized portrait canvas, Design/Dev tool rows and mode states, Hand/Scale/Move states, full-width Properties/Inspect sheets through mode changes, and a device report that the Dev panel, mode switch, per-mode pill and instant field focus work. This is partial evidence, not acceptance of every tool or phone workflow.

Still unverified on a signed-in device are the latest landscape Layers canvas compensation, floating-pill safe-area placement and selection-flicker fix; panel-colour coverage behind the keyboard; overlay placement and field editing across orientations and interface zoom values; every numeric-field classification; the broader Home/prototype/restoration/Share/download workflow; and Duo hardware behavior. Figma UI changes can break panel or overlay recognition. The wider canvas layout’s memory cost is also unverified.

Evidence and open checks are in the iPhone UX record, physical structural captures and device reports. The Alpha label describes product maturity; it does not mean those checks pass.