I’ve been struggling to get symmetry to work recently, and I’m not sure what I’m doing wrong… I feel like it used to just work “out of the box” on things like this PolySphere example, but now it seems really hit-or-miss… It does seem to work with files like “DemoHead” though. 
Hi @brittnell
I think you are just clicking the wrong button. You are activating the “Local Symmetry” button. “Local Symmetry” just enables symmetry to work on a per subtool basis where the subtool might not be lined up with the global axis. However, that still needs Symmetry to be active. I think the button you are looking for is the “Activate Symmetry” button in the Transform palette (see image) or you can just hit X on the keyboard to activate it… The reason it works on the DemoHead ztool is that symmetry was already turned on for that subtool when it was saved.
@zber2,
I’m not sure how I missed that, other than it being a LONG time since I’ve worked in Z-Brush.
Thank you!