Dominic Böttger
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Using Figma with Local Fonts on Omarchy Linux

Published on March 19, 2026 by Dominic Böttger (1 months ago) · 4 min read

Figma on Linux has a long-standing limitation: there’s no official Figma Font Helper. On macOS and Windows, Figma can access your locally installed fonts through a helper app. On Linux, you’re stuck with Google Fonts — unless you set things up yourself.

On top of that, recent versions of Figma actively disable the font helper connection when they detect a Linux browser. So even if you install a third-party font agent, Figma won’t talk to it.

Here’s how I got full local font support working on Omarchy.

What We’re Setting Up

By the end of this guide, you’ll have:

  • A font agent that serves your local fonts to Figma
  • A dedicated Chromium instance that tricks Figma into enabling the font helper
  • A desktop shortcut that launches everything seamlessly from your app launcher

Step 1: Install figma-agent-linux

figma-agent-linux is an open-source replacement for Figma’s proprietary Font Helper. It runs as a local server on port 44950, serving your system fonts to the Figma web app.

Install it from the AUR:

yay -Syu figma-agent-linux-bin

The package includes a systemd user socket that listens on 127.0.0.1:44950. Enable and start it:

systemctl --user enable --now figma-agent.socket

The socket activation means the agent only starts when Figma actually requests fonts — it doesn’t run permanently in the background.

Verify it’s listening:

systemctl --user status figma-agent.socket

You should see active (listening).

Step 2: Create the Figma Launcher Script

Here’s the problem: even with figma-agent-linux running, Figma detects that you’re on Linux and refuses to connect to the local font helper. The workaround is to spoof a Windows user agent string.

Create a launcher script at ~/bin/figma.sh:

#!/usr/bin/env bash
UA="Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 10.0; Win64; x64) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/123.0.0.0 Safari/537.36"
chromium --user-data-dir="$HOME/.config/chromium-figma" --user-agent="$UA" --app="https://www.figma.com/files/recent"

Make it executable:

chmod +x ~/bin/figma.sh

There are three important flags here:

  • --user-agent spoofs a Windows Chrome user agent, which makes Figma think you’re on Windows and enables the font helper connection
  • --user-data-dir creates a separate Chromium profile so the spoofed user agent doesn’t affect your regular browsing
  • --app launches Figma in app mode without the browser UI (address bar, tabs, etc.)

Step 3: Create the Desktop Entry

To launch Figma from your Hyprland app launcher (Walker, Wofi, etc.), create a .desktop file.

First, grab a Figma icon — save a PNG to ~/.local/share/applications/icons/Figma.png.

Then create ~/.local/share/applications/Figma.desktop:

[Desktop Entry]
Version=1.0
Name=Figma
Comment=Figma Design Tool
Exec=/home/YOUR_USERNAME/bin/figma.sh
Terminal=false
Type=Application
Icon=/home/YOUR_USERNAME/.local/share/applications/icons/Figma.png
StartupNotify=true

Replace YOUR_USERNAME with your actual username. The Exec path must be absolute — ~ won’t work in desktop files.

Step 4: Test It

  1. Make sure the font agent socket is active:

    systemctl --user status figma-agent.socket

  2. Launch Figma from your app launcher or run ~/bin/figma.sh directly

  3. Open a design file, click on a text layer, and check the font picker — your local fonts should appear alongside Google Fonts

Troubleshooting

Fonts not showing up in Figma:

  • Check that the socket is active: systemctl --user status figma-agent.socket
  • If the socket was disabled (e.g. after an update), re-enable it: systemctl --user enable --now figma-agent.socket
  • Verify your fonts are registered: fc-list | grep -i "FontName"
  • Hard-refresh Figma with Ctrl+Shift+R

Figma still not detecting the font helper:

  • Make sure you’re launching via the script with the spoofed user agent
  • Check that you haven’t accidentally updated the Chromium user agent string to something that still identifies as Linux
  • Open chrome://version in the Figma Chromium instance to verify the user agent

Font agent not starting:

  • Check the service logs: journalctl --user -u figma-agent.service
  • Restart the socket: systemctl --user restart figma-agent.socket

Why Not Use the Figma Desktop App?

There is no official Figma desktop app for Linux. The “desktop app” on macOS and Windows is actually an Electron wrapper around the web app — which is exactly what we’re replicating here with Chromium in app mode. The only difference is our version also works with local fonts.

Conclusion

With this setup, Figma on Omarchy works just as well as on macOS — complete local font support, a clean app-like window, and a proper desktop shortcut. The figma-agent-linux socket activation keeps things lightweight, and the user-agent trick handles Figma’s Linux detection gracefully.

Written by Dominic Böttger

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