Hi, all. We just got a email this morning from Abstract Team
Dear Customer,
Abstract will officially sunset on January 31, 2026. You will have until April 30, 2026 to export all data. Your subscription will be adjusted to align with this date. Annual plans will be prorated; monthly plans will end on the last billing cycle before January 31.
From Feb 1 through Apr 30, 2026, your account will remain in read-only mode for data export. After Apr 30, all customer data will be permanently deleted.
We recommend exploring these alternatives:
Figma:
Perforce:
We thank you for using Abstract and remain available for support until February 28, 2026.
The Abstract Team
We have build a solid DS-system and work files projects in to our Abstract. Now that we need to make the migration to the Sketch workspace the question is how to keep the symbols links from the example-workfile.sketch in to the addes workspace ds-app.sketch file?
I know how to export or duplicate the files to the Sketch workspace but the issue is still the linking the symbols to the added workspace ds-app.sketch ? Is there any automation for this or do we need to change every symbol that is linked to the abstract ds-app.sketch (Main 001010) to the workspace ds-app.sketch ?
I migrated an entire DS from Abstract to Sketch a couple years ago and it was relatively simple to relink all the files using the Symbol Swapper plugin. I’d get some errors with a couple symbols here and there, but nothing too serious.
I’m not sure that plugin works anymore but you could try to do it with Sketch’s own Replace library feature (Although I must say that, at least for me, that hasn’t worked very well).
On the brighter side, once used to Sketch Workspace, our workflow became much better and easier than the one we had with Abstract.
Download your Library and upload it to your Workspace
Enable your newly uploaded Library in Sketch.
download your documents from Abstract and open them in Sketch
Check if the Mac app automatically detects the Library in the Workspace (and connects your Components to it).
If it does, then you can upload your documents to your Workspace.
Done.
The app will always try to link the Components to the Library if the IDs of the documents match, so merge all your different branches to your main Library, and do the same with the documents, then download the final master one, which should include all these changes.
On the subject of Abstract sunsetting, can I ask what people are planning to do regarding version control/branches? I’m currently trying to figure out how I can keep the workflow I’ve been using for the last 8 years (from what I can see, starring versions in Workspace isn’t really going to replicate branches in Abstract).
It would be really useful to hear how other teams are going to handle this (if the wonderful people at Sketch could knock together a 1:1 copy of Abstract’s branch system by February, that would also be great!)
My experience, in case it helps: I was afraid of letting go the branches system and rely only in starring versions and collaboration but, as I said in this tread, it resulted in a simpler and more efficient workflow.
Something we did that I think helped is that In Abstract we had big files for each technology, and used pages to separate functionalities. When we migrated to Sketch Workspace, we created Projects for each technology, and separated each functionality in different files, using pages for a more precise classification. That means that it was rare for two people on the team to be working at the same time in the same file.
That said, when that happens (and it does sometimes, specially in shared libraries), Sketch’s live collaboration works well and even allows to workflows we’ve never had before, like two people working side by side in the same thing, coordinating between them and making changes at the same time.
So my suggestion is: Make some tests before the big migration, try different organizations and workflows until it feels right, and forget about branches forever.
Just to clarify why my workflow relies so heavily on a branch system… In my organisation, the UI/UX team ties all of our work to mirror Jira tickets, so a dev/engineering ticket is raised, we create a branch in Abstract (with the same ticket number) and provide the design solution (a link to a collection in Abstract and an image for reference is dropped into the Jira ticket).
This ticket can then sit in the backlog and be assigned whenever the dev team wants to work on it (this could be a few days or even months), this way, developers are never waiting on designs to begin work and the UI/UX team can use child branches to address additional tickets in the same area or branch directly from “main” for a “clean” branch in a different area. When the dev team eventually implement the feature and resolve the ticket in Jira, I then can merge my Abstract branch into my “main” branch. This system has worked well so far as it keeps my files on “main” up to date with the current public software release whilst allowing the UI/UX team to continue pushing forward on future designs without infecting the main branch.
I can replicate this workflow a little using starred versions of commits to my workspace (and share links to those individual versions on Jira tickets) but as I can never know in which order tickets will be worked on (by developers) I’m likely going to run into problems with that way of working as sooner or later, things will go out of sync.
I guess that I can keep things really simple and just duplicate files to work on (treating the new file as a branch) and then manually merge the changes into the “master” file & delete the “branch” file once developer work has been completed - not the most elegant of solutions but less likely to cause problems in the long run.
@raulrincon I followed your instructions to transfer files from Abstract to Sketch Cloud. I added the file details as a library and linked them to the project files, then clicked the “Sync Library Components” button. However, the old Abstract library link still appears in the symbol. I’ve attached images for reference. As a result, I had to manually update the symbols to use the correct library, which is now in Sketch Cloud under the same name. Is there any way to automate this process and resolve the issue automatically?
Thanks for the reply and for giving that a go. Actually, the process should be automatic since the Library ID should match (Abstract vs what is on your Workspace).
Since the ID of the documents (Libraries) are the same, and you:
Disabled the one from Abstract
Enabled the Library on your Workspace (the very same that was on Abstract)
The app should have picked up this change without any interaction from you. Also the Sync Library Components action shouldn’t have been needed in this case, since this is mostly an action that triggers a force-check of the Library Components.
As per my original instructions, we’ve performed the process over and over again with customers and it has worked (for the most part, with some exceptions) without a hitch. However, we understand that every setup is different and there might be things that don’t go as planned.
If you’d like, you can shoot us a message over to productsupport@sketch.com and we’ll be happy to check the whole process with you and see if we can spot where things might have not gone as intended!
