The swipe right from a Galaxy phone’s leftmost home screen, the one that opens a feed of news stories, has an end date. Samsung is discontinuing its News app on Dec. 21, 2026, at 00:00 UTC, and notices say all user data tied to the service will be erased after the shutdown.
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Samsung has not announced a replacement. The app’s home screen widget will stop receiving new content on the same date, and the media page reached by that right swipe will be removed, which leaves owners with a gap on a screen many of them never customized.
Jay Bonggolto of Android Central reported on Oct. 31 that the closure date comes from a Samsung confirmation first spotted by SamMobile. Notices have been confirmed for India and South Korea, and Android Central says owners in other markets should watch for similar announcements because regional services may not close on the same schedule. The notice Android Central describes urges users to remove the widget before the service closes.
The Dec. 21 cutoff and what disappears
The December date is 00:00 UTC, which falls on the evening of Sunday, Dec. 20 in the Americas and on the morning of Dec. 21 in India and South Korea. After it, the widget goes quiet, the dedicated news page is gone and Samsung stops providing updates to the app, according to Fox 32 Chicago’s report on the notice. That report does not say which countries are covered, including whether the United States is, so the shutdown should be treated as confirmed for the markets Android Central named. Counting from Nov. 11, owners have 40 days before the cutoff, and Samsung’s advice in the notice is simply to take the widget off the home screen before it stops updating.
For anyone who relied on the feed, Android Central suggests Google Discover as the likely substitute, since it already ships on Galaxy devices. The outlet also published a guide to personalizing Discover that covers turning on Web and App Activity, following sites and searches, and marking topics as uninterested.
Discover has its own controls for owners who switch. Android Central’s guide says the feed can be tuned by turning on Web and App Activity, following sites through Chrome, tapping the heart icon on stories to build a liked list in the Interests tab, and using the ellipsis under any article to mark a topic or source as uninteresting. Those settings live in Google’s app, not Samsung’s, so they will not be touched by the December shutdown.
Data erasure and the legal-retention carve-out
Android Central reports that Samsung will erase all user data related to the service after the shutdown, covering personal information, account profiles and personalization settings. Samsung’s wording leaves room for local law. Fox 32 said personal information collected through the app will be “deleted without delay,” while noting that where a law requires a retention period, deletion may wait until that period ends.
The practical reading is that erasure is the plan for everyone, with a delay possible in places that require records to be kept. Samsung has not said which locations impose such a period. Fox 32 attributed the caveat to local laws in “some of the locations where Samsung News was used,” which suggests the retention exceptions are narrow and tied to specific jurisdictions rather than a general policy of keeping data.
From Samsung Free to Samsung News to nothing
The app’s life will have been short by phone-software standards. Samsung News arrived in April 2023 as the relaunched Samsung Free, so a Dec. 21, 2026 shutdown ends the brand after about three years and eight months. Android Central notes that no replacement has been announced, and Google Discover, already present on Galaxy phones, is the obvious landing spot for readers who relied on the swipe-right page.
Samsung News is a late stage in a chain of rebrands. Android Central’s earlier coverage describes Samsung Free as Samsung’s alternative to Google Discover, introduced with One UI 3 and itself the second rebrand of the feature after Bixby Home became Samsung Daily. The April 2023 report said Samsung Free, then at version 5.5.08.3 on the Galaxy Store, would become Samsung News with the 6.0.1 update scheduled for April 18 that year.
Samsung is retiring other small utilities around the same time. BGR reported that AR Doodle and Quick Measure are also being discontinued, with Samsung saying they may return in the future with improvements. Existing installs of those two apps keep working, though Samsung warns that some features may not function properly, and Quick Measure will not get compatibility support in future operating system updates. BGR gave two end dates for those apps, Dec. 21 in its article and Dec. 31 in the Galaxy Store notice, a reminder to check the wording on each device. What Samsung will put in the News app’s place, if anything, is the question the company has not answered.
This article was produced with the assistance of AI and reviewed by Morning Overview editors prior to publication.
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