Google will stop supporting Chrome Apps for all platforms in 2022

Google will end support for Chrome Apps on Windows, Mac, Linux and Chrome OS in June 2022 and the corresponding APIs will no longer be supported from that moment on. Google already announced in 2016 to phase out the Chrome Apps, because too few people use them.

As of March of this year, Google has already stopped accepting new public Chrome apps, but developers can continue to update their apps until June 2022. Google still accepts non-public apps, for companies, for example.

From June 2021, general support for the apps on Chrome for Windows, Mac and Linux will end, but companies can get extended support and Google will also continue to support the apps on Chrome OS. As of June 2022, support for all platforms will end and the APIs NaCl, PNaCl, and PPAPI will also be end-of-life from that date.

The timeline Google is publishing gives administrators some extra time to phase out the apps, compared to the schedule Google announced early this year. Google reports that it has adjusted the schedule somewhat based on feedback from customers and partners. The discontinuation of Chrome Apps could hardly have come as a surprise: as far back as 2016, Google indicated that it was slowly phasing out Chrome Apps on platforms other than Chrome OS and ending it in 2018. Google then advised developers to switch to web apps.

The announcement to end support does not affect extensions. Developers were able to create Chrome Apps based on HTML5, CSS and JavaScript and they were supposed to serve as an alternative to web apps and mobile apps, but the platform was not a success.