How to password protect a Figma prototype

Yes, you can, and it takes about thirty seconds. Here are the exact steps, the four things about it that catch people out, and the point where a password on the prototype stops being the same thing as a password on the work.

Updated 14 July 2026

How to do it

Password protection is available on all paid Figma plans, and you need edit access to the file. It is not on the free Starter plan.

1. 1Open the prototype and click Share prototype in the toolbar.
2. 2Click Can view (or Can edit) to open the access setting, and change it to Anyone.
3. 3Under Additional security, tick Password required.
4. 4Type a password into Add password, or click Generate and let Figma pick one. Any length, any characters.
5. 5Click Save, then copy the link.

Anyone opening that link now hits a password prompt before they see a single frame. To change it later, click Reset under Password required. To remove it, untick Password required.

The design file works the same way, and covers the prototypes inside it

The steps are almost identical, just from a different button: open the file, click Share in the right sidebar, set access to Anyone, then tick Password required under Additional security.

A password set on the design file also applies to the prototypes inside it. So if you are protecting a whole project rather than one flow, do it once at the file level.

Four things that surprise people

Some of your viewers will never see the prompt

The password is for people arriving from outside. Anyone with view or edit access to the project the file sits in, and anyone invited to the file by email address, walks straight past it. That is usually what you want, but it does mean "I set a password" and "everyone has to type a password" are not the same sentence.

It is one password, for everyone

There is no per-person password and no per-person revoke. If you shared it with a client and they forwarded it to their whole company, the only lever you have is to reset the password, which locks out everyone at once, including the people you meant to let in. You then send the new one round again.

You need edit access, and a paid plan

If the Password required option is greyed out or missing, that is almost always the reason. You are either on the free plan, or you only have view access to the file.

It does not expire, unless you are on Enterprise

The link stays live and the password stays valid until you change it. Setting an expiry date on a public link is an Enterprise feature. For everyone else, a link you sent for one review round is still a working link a year later, and it is still sitting in that email thread.

Where the password stops

All of the above is genuinely useful, and if the only thing you are handing over is one prototype, it is enough. The trouble is that a client handover is rarely one thing.

It is the prototype, and then:

• the spec, in a Google Doc,
• the assets, in a Drive folder or a zip,
• the walkthrough video, on Loom,
• and a note in the email explaining what changed since last time.

Password the Figma prototype and you have gated exactly one of those. The other four are still open URLs, sitting in the same email, under the same NDA. The gate is real, but it is around the wrong shape: it protects an artifact, when what you needed to protect was a handover.

That is the difference a client portal makes. The password sits on the page rather than on one file, so the prototype, the spec, the assets and the video are all behind the same door, and you send one link instead of five. It is also on your own domain, which is a nicer thing to ask a client to type a password into than someone else's design tool.

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