Arc Is Shutting Down: What to Do by Dec. 22

The Arc browser shutdown now has a date. The Browser Company announced on Oct. 22, 2026, that it will “sunset” Arc on Dec. 22, 2026, when the desktop browser for macOS and Windows stops working, Arc accounts are deactivated and Arc services are switched off. New Arc accounts can no longer be created, and the company is steering users to Dia, its newer AI-focused browser.

Image: A laptop on a desk, used for illustration. Photo: Pixel.la Free Stock Photos, via Wikimedia Commons (CC0).

Arc browser shutdown timeline: the key dates

According to The Browser Company’s help center, the wind-down happens in four steps:

Oct. 22, 2026: The sunset was announced. New Arc accounts can no longer be created.
Nov. 23, 2026: Arc Search for iOS and Android keeps working as a browser, but its AI features turn off and users can no longer sign in or sync with Arc. Arc for macOS and Windows starts showing reminders about the shutdown.
Dec. 15, 2026: Last day to request a copy of the personal data tied to an Arc account, or to ask for it to be deleted.
Dec. 22, 2026: Arc for macOS and Windows stops working and sign-in ends. All Arc accounts are deactivated and Arc services are turned off. Arc Search for Android is removed from the Google Play Store and from devices it is installed on. Arc Search for iOS continues to work as a basic mobile browser.

The company says it will delete personal data associated with a deactivated account within 30 days, and that after Dec. 22 it will not be able to retrieve Arc account data for anyone.

Why The Browser Company is ending Arc

The company framed the decision around security. “Keeping a browser safe and secure has become harder and harder in the age of AI, and we can no longer keep Arc as safe and secure as it needs to be,” its help center says. In its announcement, quoted by 9to5Mac, the company wrote: “We’ve decided to sunset Arc on December 22, 2026. That’s not an easy sentence to write.”

The announcement added that “keeping a browser secure takes constant, dedicated work that is only increasing in the age of AI,” and that Dia “was built from the ground up to meet today’s security standards, so that’s where our engineering and security teams will focus moving forward.” The Verge reported that Dia is now where the company is focused, “including our whole security team.”

The timing fits a wider pattern. This week, web hosts and site owners have been rushing to patch the AI-discovered PHP flaws we covered in our explainer on the PHP2Shell vulnerabilities, a reminder of how much maintenance work security now demands from any software team.

How Arc got here

Arc was the product that put The Browser Company on the map, 9to5Mac noted. It drew attention for ideas such as Spaces, folders and pinned tabs, and The Verge wrote that many of Arc’s big ideas have since popped up in other browsers. But new feature development ended in 2025, when the company moved on to building Dia. Atlassian acquired The Browser Company for $610 million last year, according to The Verge.

Until Dec. 22, Arc for macOS and Windows will keep getting basic updates and fixes, but no new features, the help center says. Support staff will only look into larger problems, such as Arc crashing or not opening, and are no longer fixing smaller bugs or accepting feature requests.

How to move from Arc to Dia, or export your data

The Browser Company’s recommended path is Dia, which is free to download. When setting Dia up on macOS or Windows, users can choose to import from Arc, and Dia brings over Spaces, Favorites, pinned tabs and folders, along with bookmarks, history, passwords and extensions, according to the help center. The company’s announcement, as quoted by 9to5Mac, says the Arc features people use “are free in Dia, and the AI is optional.”

Some practical points for anyone still using Arc:

Move before Dec. 22. After that date Arc will not open, so locally stored Spaces, tabs and history cannot be reached from inside the app.
Not switching to Dia? The company says users can save their Spaces and tabs as a list of links before the deadline.
On iPhone or Android: Arc Search lets you export a list of open tabs. On iOS it is under the Tab Switcher’s settings, then Export Data; on Android it is Settings, then Storage, then Export data.
Account data requests: a copy of account data (name, email address, join date and a record of how you used Arc) can be requested until Dec. 15. That copy does not include browsing data stored on your device, such as history or passwords.

Users who want something other than Dia have options too. The Verge noted that Zen, a browser based on Mozilla’s Gecko engine, is a frequent recommendation for people looking for an Arc-like experience.

A tough year for new browsers

Arc is not the only ambitious browser to fold in 2026. 9to5Mac noted that OpenAI shut down its AI-centric Atlas browser this year in favor of ChatGPT’s in-app browser. The AI companies have increasingly built browsing into their own assistants instead, as we saw when OpenAI introduced Dots AI agents at DevDay 2026.

For Arc’s loyal users, the practical message is simple: there are about two months left, and the safest move is to export or import your data well before the Dec. 22 cutoff.

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Arc Browser Shutdown: Key Dates Before Arc Stops Working Dec. 22