Apple quietly pulled the plug on Clips, its small, friendly video-editing app that first arrived in 2017 as an easy way to stitch together short videos with music, captions and silly effects. The company removed Clips from the App Store for new users and updated a support document to say the app “is no longer being updated” and won’t be available for new downloads after October 10, 2025. Existing installs can still be used for now, but Apple clearly wants users to back up any creations they care about.

Clips launched eight years ago as Apple’s take on fast, social-friendly video creation — think voice-driven titles, filters, overlays, and AR flourishes like Memoji/Animoji and LiDAR-powered effects. In the early years, Apple added features with some fanfare, but in recent seasons, updates mostly dried up; the app has been left to receive relatively minor bug fixes rather than major feature work. That slow cadence is the backdrop to this exit.

Apple’s support page is blunt: Clips won’t be updated, and as of October 10, 2025, new users can’t download it. But if you already have Clips installed, you can keep using it on iOS 26 or iPadOS 26 (or earlier). Apple also notes that previously downloaded copies remain available to re-download from your Apple account — but that’s no substitute for exporting your work, because apps left unmaintained often break after major OS updates.

If you’re sitting on Clips projects, Apple gives two clear paths: save your edited videos (with effects) as finished video files, or export individual original clips without effects so you can recompose them elsewhere later. The support page walks through the exact taps — open the video, tap Share → Options → Video, choose aspect ratio and the save destination, or select Save Clip from inside a project to retrieve a raw clip. In short, save as finished movies and save originals if you might want to re-edit.

What to do right now

1. Open Clips and export any finished videos to Photos or Files (iCloud Drive, local storage). Follow Share → Options → Video → Save Video.
2. For source material you recorded into a Clips project, export each clip (tap a clip → swipe tools → Save Clip) so you keep the unedited footage.
3. If you want to continue editing on Apple gear, import exports into iMovie or another editor. Apple explicitly lists iMovie, plus third-party apps such as InShot, VN Video Editor and GoPro Quik as alternatives.
4. Consider long-term backups (iCloud, an external drive, or a cloud service) — exported files are the safest way to guarantee you don’t lose months of edits when a future OS change finally breaks the app.

Clips wasn’t a massive business; it was a lightweight creative tool that let people make quick, shareable videos without learning a timeline-based editor. Its retirement isn’t a dramatic strategic reversal so much as a pruning: Apple appears to be consolidating where it invests, favouring larger creative apps or platform-level features over niche utilities that haven’t proven to be strategic priorities. Analysts and reporters point out that without regular updates, an app becomes brittle, so Apple’s move to remove Clips for new users and stop updates is a common lifecycle for lower-priority first-party apps.

Clips is not gone for everyone today — if it’s already on your iPhone or iPad, you can keep using it for now — but it’s effectively end-of-life: no updates, no new installs, and a real risk that a future OS update will render it unusable. If you value anything in Clips, export it now as a finished movie and back up the raw clips if you want to re-edit. Apple’s own support page has step-by-step export instructions and links to alternatives for further editing.