Break Apart (Decompose an SVG / Group)

2 min read

Break apart splits a multi-part item into individually selectable, movable parts — so you can move, restyle, animate, or rig each piece on its own. It’s the quickest way to take an imported SVG icon apart into its separate shapes.

How to break an item apart

  1. Select a group, a compound path, or an imported SVG on the canvas.
  2. In the Item panel, click Break apart. (The button only appears for items that can actually be split.)
  3. The item becomes a group named Parts. Each piece is a separate item you can grab.
  4. Double-click the Parts group to enter it, then click a single piece to select just that piece.

The parts still move together as one until you enter the group — so you don’t lose the overall arrangement.

Removing or rearranging parts

  • Enter the group and drag a part to reposition it.
  • Use the Groups panel to see each part and remove one with its ×, or Ungroup All to dissolve the group entirely.
  • Deleting the last part removes the now-empty group automatically.

What can and can’t be broken apart

Break apart separates pieces that already exist as distinct shapes:

  • ✅ A group → its child items.
  • ✅ A compound path → its separate sub-shapes (holes, like eye cut-outs, are kept with their shape).
  • ✅ A multi-path SVG → each path / shape.

It cannot divide a single solid shape. If a silhouette — say a head and torso — was drawn as one path, there are no separate pieces inside it to extract, so you’ll see “This is a single shape — there are no separate pieces to break apart.” Splitting one solid shape into semantic parts is a job for Object Detection, not break-apart.