Apple pulls its long-forgotten video app, ‘Clips’

After seven years on the App Store, Apple is officially saying goodbye to Clips, its short-form video editing app once seen as a rival to Snapchat and Instagram Stories.

In a new support page, Apple confirmed that Clips has been removed from the App Store and will no longer receive updates.

While new users can no longer download the app, existing users can continue using it on current or earlier versions of iOS and iPadOS, and even re-download it through their Apple account if necessary.

The company also urged users to save their Clips videos to their photo library, warning that the app may become harder to use over time without software updates.

For those unversed, Clips was launched in 2017. It was designed to let users stitch together photos and videos with emojis, filters, and background music, an attempt to capture the growing social video trend.

However, the app never gained much traction. Early reviewers described it as “simple to a fault”, offering creative tools but lacking the viral ecosystem of competing social media platforms.

Moreover, on Reddit, longtime Apple fans reacted with mild nostalgia or indifference, with one user summing up the general sentiment: “Wait, Apple had a Clips app?”

Although Apple continued to update the app for a few years, recent changes were limited to bug fixes.