Where apps hide your files

Where design files hide

Updated 2026-08-08 · 4 min read

Two design tools, two opposite storage models. Sketch leaves .sketch files wherever you saved them; Figma keeps almost nothing on disk — until someone exports, and then nobody can find the export.

Sketch: ordinary files, extraordinary scatter

.sketch documents are normal files, saved wherever the save dialog pointed that day: project folders, Desktop, Downloads from colleagues. An inventory is one search away:

mdfind 'kMDItemFSName == "*.sketch"'

or a Finder Smart Folder on the extension. Sort by modified date to separate live work from archaeology. The heavyweight files — with large image fills — respond well to a size sort when a design drive fills up.

Figma: the cloud, with three local leaks

Figma documents live on Figma's servers. What ends up on your disk:

• Exports — every PNG, SVG and PDF exported lands in Downloads unless someone

chose otherwise. This is the "where did that asset go" folder.

• .fig files — manual backups via File → Save local copy. Rare, precious, and

usually in Downloads too.

• Font cache and app data — the desktop app's container under ~/Library,

regenerable, not your work.

If the design itself matters, the .fig backup is the only file that counts; the rest can be re-exported from the cloud document.

The handoff problem

Assets shipped to developers get renamed, copied into repos, and duplicated. Six months later, finding the source of icon-final@2x.png means matching by name across every project folder — a one-line query in an indexed search tool, an afternoon otherwise. Naming exports after their component, not final, is the cheap prevention.

Common questions

Does Figma store my designs on my Mac?

Not meaningfully. Documents live in Figma's cloud; only exports, manual .fig backups and caches touch the disk.

How do I find every Sketch file across old drives?

Search by the .sketch extension. For unplugged archive drives, only a tool that indexes offline volumes can answer without replugging each one.