Adobe Animate: End of Life and Support Timeline

Fresh from the Adobe newsletter (translated from German): "Please also note that access to your Animate files and project data will also end on March 1, 2027. For a smooth transition, we recommend that you export your Animate FLA and XFL files to other formats such as SWF, SVG, and MP4 well before this date."

No access to the files I created? Thank you very much!

“while Adobe Express offers one-click animation effects that can be easily applied to photos, videos, text, shapes and other design elements”

You guys seriously have no idea a lot of people use animate to do actual animation do you? Series, adverts… Im litraly animating in animate for a movie right now. 

Totally blind to your customers.

How is this happening? I use Animate/Flash to do my job. Hell I do series using Flash/Animate. Why cant you keep Animate23 going as it’s the most stable. None of the other apps does what animate does. Is this for real?

Sad to hear this. My number one use case for Adobe Animate was using AS3 to script complex, often particle-based animations. What other animation tools allow similar scripted animations?

DUDE. I KINDA NEED THAT TO DO MY STUFF..

In the Help page it states “… For all other customers, technical support, application access, and the ability to download content will be available until March 1, 2027.“

Does “application access” mean we won’t be able to open Animate at all beyond the EOL support date, even if we have it downloaded?

This is incredibly disappointing. Adobe could have made the choice to improve Adobe Animate without sacrificing a program that an entire community working Animators use. As an animation teacher, I’ve taught my students Adobe Animate as the industry standard for 2D animation, and now we will have to learn an entirely different program. Adobe has been prioritizing AI over the working artists that pay huge amounts of money and it’s so disappointing to see it head in this direction. I will be cancelling my Adobe subscription entirely because of this decision. It’s no longer worth it. Shame on you Adobe. 

pfft

☹️

It’s disappointing to see Adobe retire capable products, as they previously did with XD and Muse. While I personally use Tumult Hype and would recommend it to anyone looking for an alternative, this pattern says a lot about Adobe’s approach: shutting down well-established tools without clearly communicating what will replace them.

Adobe XD is a prime example, particularly following the collapse of the Figma acquisition. Although there are other tools available on the market, it raises broader questions about the long-term value of the Creative Cloud package when its offering continues to shrink with the removal of respected software.