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Preran
Community Manager
PreranCommunity Manager
Community Manager
February 3, 2026
Sticky

Update on the status of Adobe Animate

  • February 3, 2026
  • 5 replies
  • 0 views

Yesterday, Adobe shared an email with Adobe Animate customers on the future of Animate. What we shared did not meet our standards and caused a lot of confusion and angst within the community. On behalf of Adobe, I want to apologize.

 

While an email to all Animate customers will go out shortly, we wanted to quickly share a few things: 1) our standard approach for applications in maintenance mode, 2) changes to our plans for Adobe Animate and its status, and 3) our commitments to ensuring that you always have access to your content, regardless of the state of development of an application.

 

Standard Approach for Applications in Maintenance Mode

If we deprioritize active development of an application, our approach is to move that application into maintenance mode with continued support. Under maintenance mode, the application will continue to be available, will continue to receive security and bug fixes, but will not get new features.

 

If we decide to go a step further and discontinue a product, we will work closely with the community to ensure they have adequate time to plan in order to minimize disruption and will take steps so that the community continues to have long-term access to their content.

 

Current State of Adobe Animate

Adobe Animate is in maintenance mode. While we are no longer adding new features to Animate, we will continue to support it and provide ongoing security and bug fixes. More importantly, Animate will continue to be available for both new and existing users. This is a change from what we communicated in the email yesterday for the status of Adobe Animate, its time-frame, and availability.

 

To be clear, we are not discontinuing or removing access to Adobe Animate and it will continue to be available to both existing and new customers.

 

Commitments for long-term content/file access

For Adobe Animate, our commitment is to work with the community to ensure users continue to have long-term access to their content, regardless of the state of development of the application.

    5 replies

    D
    Danielle Seitz
    Participant
    February 4, 2026

    Thanks for the climbdown. Adobe was wise to rethink this decision.

    It’s not perfect, however; Adobe should take the next step and return Animate to active status. Animate/Flash users have shown recently that they are fiercely passionate about their software and the work for which they use it. Killing this product off, or simply diminishing it with semi-retirement, would be both a great loss to the creative community and a foolish business decision. Axing the resources for updating and improving the likes of Animate to fund the process of tacking yet more AI features onto your products – and then charging your customers for the privilege – is a little like asking us to lend you the money to buy the shovel you’ll use to dig your own grave. 

    Long live Animate. 

    Firewood：D
    Firewood：D
    Inspiring
    February 4, 2026

    Can someone tell me if they've fixed this issue? In versions 24.0.9/10/11/12, dragging audio directly into the timeline results in an error pop-up, even though the audio itself imports normally. If they haven't fixed this, then they've really lost all semblance of civility.

    Moving it into maintenance mode is a wise move; there are still many developers who can extend it to make Animate even better.

    kglad
    Community Expert
    kgladCommunity Expert
    Community Expert
    February 4, 2026

    thank you for the clarification.

    Speedroller
    Speedroller
    Participant
    February 4, 2026

    The last message before this mentions no new customers would be able to download Animate after March 1st, here you mention it will still be available to both existing and new customers (aka my students). Is there a timeline set on when they would not be able to download and use it anymore, the new customers. 
    Just wondering because the message on the adobe page has not been updated yet… 

    For me it would be an absolute shame if Animate would disappear, love the timeline layout, love the workflow, and a very good tool to teach! 

      stunning_Spirit5E81
      stunning_Spirit5E81
      Participant
      February 4, 2026

      Well, I’m still mad that Animate is discontinuing, but since it’s on maintenance mode, what the hell anyways? I’m just half glad it’s still available for existing and new human customers, right? And at least it’s not discontinuing anymore. And even without new features, Animate will be fully well-supported. 😁

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