Samsung is shutting down its Samsung News service, including the app, widget and leftmost home screen media page on Galaxy phones and tablets. Notices in India and South Korea give a December 21, 2026 end date. Samsung has not explained the decision or said what will replace it.
Samsung's news aggregator app, Samsung News, is shutting down. Samsung has announced it will discontinue the service, including the app, the widget and the dedicated media page on the leftmost home screen of Galaxy phones and tablets. The app itself and its media page on the leftmost panel are being discontinued too, not just the widget.
Shutdown date and notices
An in-app notice on Galaxy devices says the built-in Samsung News app will stop delivering content and updating its widget on December 21, 2026, at 00:00 UTC. Samsung has sent discontinuation notices in a couple of markets, including India and South Korea. Samsung has begun sending shutdown notices to users in those two countries, urging them to remove the widget before the service is discontinued. The Samsung News app will no longer receive updates after the date, according to Samsung.
The in-app notice has so far appeared only inside the app in India and South Korea, and no published country list confirms wider reach. Samsung has not confirmed which countries the shutdown covers.
Widget and user data
The related headlines widget will not receive new content, and Samsung recommends that users remove it from their home screens. Samsung says personal information collected through Samsung News, including user profiles and personalization information, will be deleted after the service ends. Data that Samsung is legally required to retain will be kept only for the required period before deletion. There is no export tool for Samsung News data.
What is not known
Samsung has not said why the News platform will be shut down. Samsung has not announced what will fill the leftmost panel after Samsung News is gone. It has also not confirmed whether Google Discover will become the default or whether something new will take the spot.
A fourth feed in the leftmost slot
Samsung News launched in April 2023, succeeding Samsung Free. It is the fourth feed Samsung has installed in the leftmost Home screen slot since 2017, after Bixby Home in April 2017, Samsung Daily in October 2019, and Samsung Free with One UI 3.0 in late 2020.
