To organize named Affinity colors on a Mac, use separate palettes or consistent swatch-name prefixes. For collapsible subgroups, use the Assets panel with your original colored shapes, while keeping document palettes responsible for global color links.

This workflow is for a desktop user organizing an existing collection of colored vector shapes into named families. It follows the current Affinity Help Center’s Mac interface. The central decision is whether you need easier color selection, collapsible collections of reusable shapes, or colors that update together.

Can Affinity swatches contain nested subgroups?

The current documentation describes palettes, named swatches, list appearance and sorting in the Swatches panel. It does not document a command for creating nested swatch folders or collapsible subgroups inside a palette. Its documented organization tools include Rename Palette, Duplicate Palette, Appearance and Sort. Swatches panel

The Assets panel does explicitly support categories and subcategories. Each subcategory can be expanded or collapsed, and it holds reusable objects or groups. This provides a supported route to a named collection with visible subgroups, but those entries are design assets rather than color swatches. Assets panel

Choose the structure according to what you want to do next:

Your next task Recommended organization Boundary to preserve
Apply individual colors quickly Named swatches in one palette Prefixes provide a flat naming structure
Switch between distinct color families Separate named palettes Keep each palette’s intended type
Browse collapsible families of colored shapes An asset category with subcategories Entries remain reusable objects
Change several objects through one color definition Global colors in a document palette Objects must actually use those global colors

These recommendations combine the documented features into a practical decision aid. For a collection that needs both collapsible browsing and coordinated color editing, retain the original document and its global colors, then use assets as an additional browsing library.

Choose the palette type before organizing colors

Affinity distinguishes three relevant custom palette types. A Document palette is saved inside the current document. An Application palette is available to any Affinity document. A System palette, available on Mac, is stored by the operating system and can be available in other installed apps. Color palettes

For example, imagine a synthetic collection called Pebble with three families: Base, Accent and Surface. If the colors belong to one illustration and some must update together, retain a document palette. If they are ordinary reusable color choices for unrelated documents, an application palette may suit the task. Choose a system palette only when access through other Mac apps is part of the requirement.

Global colors have a stricter boundary: Affinity stores them in document palettes. The documentation specifically states that importing a document palette containing global colors as an Application or System palette converts those colors to standard colors. Therefore, changing palette scope is consequential when linked color editing matters. Global colors

Before changing anything, save a working copy of the document containing the original shapes. Make a short inventory of which colors are independent and which are expected to update together. Treat that expected behavior as part of the collection’s structure, alongside its names and visual order.

Organize named swatches without changing their role

Open Window > General > Swatches. From Panel Preferences, create the appropriate palette with Add Document Palette, Add Application Palette or Add System Palette, then use Rename Palette to give it an identifiable name. Swatches panel

For the illustrative Pebble collection, two arrangements are useful. Separate palettes named Pebble — Base, Pebble — Accent and Pebble — Surface make sense when you usually work with one family at a time. A single Pebble palette suits a smaller collection that you want to see together.

In the single-palette arrangement, use names such as 01 Base — Slate, 01 Base — Sand, 02 Accent — Apricot and 03 Surface — Mist. The numeric prefixes make the intended family order explicit. They are an editorial naming convention, not an Affinity subgroup feature.

To save an independent color from an original shape, select the destination palette first. Select the shape, target its fill or stroke with the color selector, and choose Add current color to palette. Alternatively, Control-click the object and use Add to Swatches, choosing the relevant fill, stroke or both. Standard saved swatches can be renamed through Rename Fill. Color palettes

Use the list view under Appearance to make names readable, and use alphabetical ordering under Sort if you adopt prefixes. This creates a readable flat collection. There is no need to reconstruct the original shapes merely to make their colors easier to find. Swatches panel

For colors already linked through existing global swatches, begin by organizing their names in place. Avoid rebuilding them as ordinary swatches just to match a new naming scheme; the global-color workflow below addresses their separate requirements.

Build collapsible subgroups from the original shapes

Use this route when your desired result is a collection with family headings that open and close. Keep the existing colored shapes as the source material, including their fills, strokes and any intentionally different treatments. There is no need to replace them with newly sampled rectangles.

Create the structure as follows:

  1. Open Window > General > Assets.
  2. In Panel Preferences, choose Create New Category and name it Pebble.
  3. Use the automatically created subcategory for the first family, renaming it Base through its options menu.
  4. Choose Create Subcategory for the remaining families, then rename them Accent and Surface.
  5. Select the original shapes belonging to one family. From that subcategory’s options menu, choose Add from Selection.
  6. Repeat for the other families. Click a subcategory title to collapse or expand its contents.

These commands and the collapsible subcategory behavior are documented in Using assets and Assets panel.

Decide whether each shape should be an individual entry or whether a whole family should appear as one reusable strip. Affinity adds individual selected items as separate assets; a selection must be grouped beforehand to become a single grouped asset. For grouping, the Move Tool provides a Group command on its context toolbar. Using assets, Move Tool

Individual entries are convenient when you reuse one sample shape at a time. A grouped strip is useful when the relationship between colors matters—for example, a row of four surface treatments that you want to place together. This is a workflow choice; neither arrangement creates swatch folders.

Control-click an asset and choose Rename Asset to replace its default name. Use Show As List when names matter more than compact thumbnails. You can also drag assets between subcategories to correct their organization. Using assets, Assets panel

Keep the source document as the reference for linked color behavior. The cited asset documentation explains reusable objects and category structure, but does not establish that asset placement preserves a particular global-color relationship across documents. An asset library alone is therefore insufficient evidence that those links remain intact.

Preserve global color links while changing the organization

A global color can drive a solid fill, a stroke or a color within a gradient. Editing that global color updates objects using it. A complete gradient cannot itself be saved as one global color. These distinctions matter when visually similar samples have different underlying definitions. Global colors

For an existing global color, Control-click its swatch and use Rename Global Color to improve the name. To inspect or change its definition, use Edit Fill. Affinity identifies global swatches with a small tab in the bottom-left corner and says the Color panel can show whether an object’s fill or stroke has a global color assigned. Global colors

If you deliberately need to introduce coordinated editing to formerly independent shapes, use a document palette and create a global color from an original object with Add current color to palette as a global color. Then explicitly apply the intended global swatch to every shape that should participate. The documentation warns that using Make Global on an existing standard swatch does not automatically update objects that previously used that color. Global colors

For example, two Pebble shapes may display the same slate color while only one uses a global swatch. Matching appearance does not establish shared behavior. Organize them under the same family if that helps browsing, but verify their assignments separately before expecting a later edit to change both.

Check the result before exporting the collection

Use this small diagnostic sequence in the working copy. It is a proposed verification method derived from the documented behavior, rather than a report of an application test:

  1. Select a representative original shape and inspect the intended fill or stroke.
  2. Confirm that the palette holding its global color remains a document palette.
  3. Temporarily edit that global swatch to an obviously different neutral sample color.
  4. Observe which intended shapes update, then undo the edit.
  5. If a shape remains unchanged, check its fill or stroke assignment and explicitly apply the intended global swatch when shared editing is required.
  6. If you plan to place assets in another document, repeat the assignment and update checks there before relying on coordinated edits.

Export according to the structure you need to retain. Export Palette produces an .afpalette file for the selected palette. Export Assets produces an .afassets file containing the selected asset category’s assets and subcategory structure. These are different deliverables: one stores a palette, while the other carries the reusable-object collection and its organization. Swatches panel, Assets panel

For a manageable Affinity color collection, use names and palette scope to organize color choices, and asset subcategories to organize reusable original shapes. Keep the source document and its document palette whenever shared global-color editing is part of the task, and verify that behavior independently of how neatly the collection is displayed.

Sources