How to remove a background in Figma

To remove a background in Figma, select the image and click Remove background: one click, if you are on a paid plan. On the free Starter plan that button is not yours, and the honest alternatives are a mask you draw by hand or a picture you cut out somewhere else and bring in as a transparent PNG. Whichever way the background goes, the last step is where most people lose it again: a PNG export from a frame with a white fill is a white PNG.

This guide covers all three routes, the export settings that keep the transparency, and what each route does with your photo. Steps checked against Figma’s help centre in September 2026, in Figma Design with the current interface.

Figma’s built-in Remove background (paid plans)

Figma added a background remover as part of Figma AI. According to Figma’s own article on AI image tools, it works on one or several images at a time, and it is in the same family as Boost resolution, Expand image and Edit with prompt.

1. Place the photo. Drag it onto the canvas, paste it, or use the image tool (Shift + Ctrl + K on Windows, Shift + Command + K on a Mac). Figma does not make an image layer: it makes a rectangle and sets the photo as its fill.
2. Select it. A toolbar appears for the selected layer; Figma’s help calls it the secondary toolbar.
3. Click Remove background. After a moment the background is gone and the subject sits on the canvas with nothing behind it.
4. Look at the edge at 200 or 400 percent zoom, against a dark and a light frame, before you export anything.

The catch is the plan. Figma’s help centre says the standalone AI tools in Figma Design are available on paid plans and need a Full seat, and that Figma AI runs on a credit system shared across every AI feature and product. If your team’s credits are spent on generating layouts, the background remover draws from the same pool. On the Starter plan the button is not available at all.

What happens to the photo

Figma is a cloud app. A Figma file lives on Figma’s servers, so the photo is uploaded the moment you place it in a file, whichever route you take after that. The AI step adds another hop. Figma’s page on how it builds Figma AI names “OpenAI and our other 3rd party model providers” and says they store data temporarily, or not at all, to process requests, and that Figma does not let them train on customer data. That is a reasonable policy, and it is still a photo travelling to two companies’ servers. For a product shot that is fine. For a photo of a person who has not agreed to it, or anything under a client NDA, it is worth knowing before you click. Is it safe to upload photos online goes through what the popular tools’ policies say.

Remove a background in Figma for free: the mask method

Without Figma AI, a background in Figma is removed the old way: you draw the outline of the part you want to keep, and tell Figma to show the photo only inside it. Figma calls that a mask. It is slower, and it is exact wherever the subject has a clean outline.

1. Place the photo and zoom in on the subject until its edge fills the screen.
2. Pick the Pen tool (P) and click around the outline of the subject. Click for a corner, click and drag for a curve. Close the shape by clicking the first point again.
3. Move the shape below the photo. In the Layers panel, drag the shape under the image. Figma’s help article on masks is explicit that a mask sits below the layers it masks.
4. Select both layers, then choose Use as mask from the more options menu in the right sidebar, or press Ctrl + Alt + M (Control + Command + M on a Mac).
5. Check the outline with View > Mask outlines, which draws the mask in green, and adjust the points of the path where it cuts into the subject or leaves background showing.

The result is a group: the photo, clipped to your path. Nothing has been deleted, so you can move the photo inside the mask, edit the path later, or remove the mask and start again.

Where the mask method falls short

A Pen path is a vector outline. It is either inside or outside, so every edge it makes is hard. On a box, a bottle, a phone or a shoe that is exactly right. On hair, fur, a wool jumper, a plant or anything slightly out of focus it is wrong, because those edges are not lines: they are a zone a few pixels wide where the subject and the background are mixed. A hard path through that zone either cuts off the fine strands or keeps a rim of the old background.

Figma has two more mask types that help a little. An alpha mask uses the opacity of the mask layer, so a shape with a blurred or gradient fill gives a soft edge; a luminance mask uses brightness instead. Neither knows where the hair is. They soften the whole outline evenly, which is not the same as following it. Clipping path versus image masking explains why retouchers treat those as two separate jobs.

Plugins that remove backgrounds

The Figma Community has several background removal plugins. The best known is Remove BG, which connects Figma to remove.bg. You create a remove.bg account, generate an API key, paste it into the plugin (Plugins > Remove BG > Set API Key), then select an image and run it. The plugin’s source on GitHub describes it as using the remove.bg service, which means the image leaves Figma and is processed on remove.bg’s servers, under remove.bg’s terms and credit limits.

Other plugins work the same way with other services. Before you install one, read its Community page for where the processing happens. If the description mentions an API key, credits, or an account with another company, the picture is being sent there. A plugin that says nothing about it has not told you, which is not the same as not uploading.

Export a PNG from Figma that stays transparent

This is the step that undoes the other three more often than any of them fails. Figma’s help article on exporting from Figma Design covers the controls; the traps are these.

1. Select what you want in the file. Export the image layer or the mask group itself when you want only the cutout. Export a frame when you want a fixed canvas around it.
2. Hide the frame fill. A new frame in Figma has a white fill. If your cutout sits in one, select the frame, go to the Fill section in the right sidebar and untick Show in exports. The frame still looks white on the canvas; the PNG is transparent.
3. Add an export. At the bottom of the right sidebar, in the Export section, click the plus.
4. Choose PNG. JPG has no transparency at all, and Figma will fill the empty area with a colour. JPG vs PNG on getSVG explains why a JPG cannot hold it.
5. Choose the scale. 1x exports at the layer’s size on the canvas. If you shrank the photo to fit a layout, pick 2x or 3x, or export from a copy at the original size.
6. Click Export. The browser saves the file to its downloads folder; the desktop app asks where.

For a quick paste into another app, right-click the layer and choose Copy/Paste as > Copy as PNG. Whether the transparency survives the paste depends on the app you paste into, not on Figma.

The resolution limit nobody mentions

Figma’s help on adding images says that an image larger than 4096 by 4096 pixels is scaled down on upload so its longest side is 4096 pixels or fewer. A photo from a modern phone is usually 4000 to 4300 pixels wide, a camera photo 6000 or more. Put a 24 megapixel product shot into Figma and it is about 11 megapixels before any background removal happens, and no export setting brings the lost pixels back.

For screens that rarely matters: a 4096 pixel image is more than any web page shows. For print, a marketplace that zooms, or a cutout you plan to reuse at large sizes, it matters a lot. The fix is to do the cutout before Figma, at full size, and keep that file as the master. Place a copy in Figma for the layout.

When the Figma routes do not work

• Hair, fur and soft edges. The Pen mask cannot follow them, and an evenly blurred alpha mask only makes the whole outline soft. Use a remover that produces a soft alpha channel.
• Starter plan, no plugin you trust. You have the mask and nothing else. For anything with a complicated outline, cut it out elsewhere and import the transparent PNG; Figma keeps the transparency of PNG and WebP images you place.
• A thin rim of old background. That is colour from the original background mixed into the edge pixels. White halo around a cutout explains where it comes from and how to trim it.
• Large originals. The 4096 pixel cap applies to every route, including the AI one, because it happens on import.
• Confidential pictures. All three routes put the photo on Figma’s servers, and two of them send it to a further company.

A cutout first, then Figma

The workflow that avoids most of this is to separate the two jobs. Cut the subject out in a tool built for it, save a transparent PNG at full resolution, then drop that PNG into Figma, where it behaves like any other image with transparency: you can place it on a coloured frame, add a shadow effect, stack text behind it, and export the layout. The cutout keeps its soft edge, and nothing about the layout depends on a paid AI seat.

If you work across several tools, removing a background in any app compares what each one can do, and how to make a transparent PNG covers the file itself.

The steps, in short

1. Place the photo. Drag the photo onto the canvas. Figma makes a rectangle with the photo as its fill, scaled down to 4096 pixels on the longest side if it is larger.
2. Remove the background. On a paid plan, select the image and click Remove background in the toolbar. On Starter, draw around the subject with the Pen tool instead.
3. Mask by hand if needed. Put the traced shape below the photo, select both, and choose Use as mask (Ctrl + Alt + M, or Control + Command + M on a Mac).
4. Check the frame fill. If the cutout sits in a frame with a white fill, untick Show in exports in the Fill section, or the transparency is painted white.
5. Export as PNG. Select the layer, click the plus in the Export section at the bottom of the right sidebar, choose PNG and a scale, and click Export.

Questions

Is Figma's remove background free?

No. Figma's help centre lists Remove background among the Figma AI tools that need a paid plan and a Full seat, and it spends AI credits from a pool shared with every other AI feature. On the free Starter plan you can mask by hand or import a picture that is already cut out.

Why is my Figma PNG export white instead of transparent?

Almost always because the layer sits inside a frame that has a fill, and new frames get a white one. Select the frame, find its fill in the right sidebar and untick Show in exports, or export the image layer on its own rather than the frame.

Does Figma upload my image to remove the background?

Everything in a Figma file is stored on Figma's servers, so the photo is uploaded the moment you place it. Figma also says its AI features use OpenAI and other third-party model providers, which keep data temporarily to process requests and may not train on it. A plugin such as Remove BG sends the image on to remove.bg as well.

Why is my exported cutout smaller than my photo?

Figma scales any image larger than 4096 by 4096 pixels down on import, so a 6000 pixel photo becomes 4096 pixels before you touch it. Export also follows the size of the layer on the canvas times the scale you pick, so a photo shrunk to fit a frame exports small at 1x.

Can I remove a background in Figma without a plugin?

Yes, with a mask. Trace the subject with the Pen tool, place that shape below the image, select both and choose Use as mask. It gives a hard edge, which is fine for products and objects and poor for hair.