If you need to move elements around your Canva artboard, grouping them is the way to go. Grouping elements in Canva not only saves time, but also keeps your design spacing precise.
How to Group and Ungroup Canva Elements From the Browser
Grouping elements on Canva allows you to move multiple elements around your artboard in one swift motion. It also ensures that micro-layouts in your design stay consistent, such as a logo with a typeset below it. Grouping in Canva is non-destructive, so you can easily ungroup your objects anytime.
Before grouping your elements together, they must first be selected. You can select multiple elements in Canva in a couple of different ways.
Click and Drag to Select
If the elements you wish to select and group are located together, the easiest way to select them is by clicking and dragging your cursor over the area.
Hovering over an element reveals a purple box around its boundaries. Clicking your cursor and dragging over elements shows a translucent purple box indicating the selected elements, while individual elements retain a purple boundary. This helps you visualize which elements are selected or not.
You don’t have to drag over the entire area of each element you wish to select, just so long as any part of each element falls within your dragged boundary, it will appear within your selected area.
Click and Shift to Select
If the elements you wish to select and group have other elements in their way—for example, you want to select all background elements but no text elements—you cannot simply drag your cursor, or you’ll select the unwanted elements.
Instead, click your cursor on the first element you want to select, then press and hold the Shift key while continuing to click on other elements. Holding down Shift while clicking adds multiple elements to your selection group. Once you’ve selected them all, let go of Shift.
To deselect individual elements, simply click the element from the group while still holding Shift. You can mix and match both methods of selection to add or remove elements to your selected group. Although all these features are found in Canva’s free version, you might want to consider upgrading to Canva Pro for more features.
Once you know how to select your elements, it’s time to group them together. There’s more than one way to group elements using the browser version of Canva.
Use the Group and Ungroup Buttons
There are many hidden features in Canva, but grouping is not one of them; the Group button is easily visible.
With two or more objects selected, the floating toolbar appears by your selection. This toolbar features the Group button alongside relevant Canva AI tools, Duplicate, Lock, Delete, and More. Selecting Group will set your selected elements into a group together.
Ungrouping is just as easy. Select any element from the group and select Ungroup. Ungrouping your Canva group will return each element to an individually movable and independent element.
Right-Click to Group and Ungroup
Select the elements you wish to group, then right-click and choose Group from the menu.
The reverse works for ungrouping your objects: right-click your group and choose Ungroup from the options. This, again, returns your previously grouped elements to independent elements once more.
Group and Ungroup With the Keyboard Shortcut
The final way to group elements in Canva’s browser version is probably the most intuitive for designers—we sure love our keyboard shortcuts. First, select multiple objects, then hit Cmd + G (Mac) or Ctrl + G (Windows) to group your elements in the blink of an eye.
To ungroup with the keyboard shortcut, there’s just one extra key: Shift. Select your group and hit Shift + Cmd + G (Mac) or Shift + Ctrl + G (Windows) to return your elements to their independence.
Even grouped elements can still be individually edited by double-clicking the specific element. For example, if you have a textbox within your group, double-click on the text box to edit the text. The same goes for image elements you wish to further edit or even move; just double-click the individual element to make it editable, but it remains part of the group once done.
If you’re using layers in Canva, remember that grouping elements on different layers will group the layers together. For example, if you need your layers in a specific order, grouping elements from the top and bottom, but not the middle, of the layers will re-order your layers once grouped. It’s something to keep in mind.
How to Group and Ungroup Elements in the Canva App
The Canva app is a great option for designing on the go, but it does work differently than Canva’s web version. Let’s see how you can select, group, and ungroup elements on the Canva app for mobile or tablet.
Selecting Elements in the Canva App
Since the Canva app uses touch technology, selecting elements is a little different from being able to use the cursor or Shift key on the browser version.
To select one individual element on the Canva app, tap the element once until a purple box surrounds it.
After selecting the first element, the floating toolbar should appear. Tap ��…” which opens the More menu > choose Select Multiple. Then tap on any other elements you wish to select; each element will have a purple box, and the group of selected elements will be bound in a white-dotted box. The Select Multiple menu action also denotes how many elements are selected in red, so you can keep track.
To deselect, simply tap anywhere else on your Canva artboard.
How to Group Elements in the Canva App
When multiple elements are selected, you’ll already be in the More menu, which is where you’ll find the Group tool.
Tap Group, and the white-dotted boundary line with however-many-selected-elements-in-purple-boxes turns into one large purple box denoting the grouped element created. This is denoted again by the number on Select Multiple, which now reads as 1.
To ungroup elements in the Canva app, select the group, and the floating toolbar now offers the option to Ungroup. If it doesn’t appear, select the "..." in the floating toolbar and choose Ungroup from there instead.