[2024] Guides Not Showing In After Effects - How To Fix

Adobe After Effects Guides Not Showing

When working in After Effects, you might sometimes notice that the layer guides, which are essentially the small dots around your layers that allow for scaling, rotating, and other transformations, are missing. This can be particularly concerning, especially when you're in the middle of a project.

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Steps to Address the Missing Layer Guides:

Accessing the Composition Panel:‍

Open your After Effects project.

Navigate to the Composition Panel. This is the main workspace where you can see your layers and their visual representation.

Toggling the "GUIDES" Checkmark:

Within the Composition Panel, look for a checkbox labeled "GUIDES."

Click on it to toggle (turn on/off) the visibility of the guides. If they were off, this action should make them visible again.

Restarting the Project:

If the above step doesn't work, save your project.

Close After Effects and then reopen it.

Load your project and check if the layer guides are now visible.

Think of the layer guides as the gridlines on a graph paper. Without them, it's challenging to plot accurate points. Similarly, without layer guides, precise editing becomes a challenge.