Arc, the browser that put tabs in a sidebar and won a devoted cult following, stops working on 22 December 2026. The Browser Company announced the Arc browser shutdown on 22 October 2026 and is moving every user to Dia, its AI-first browser.
Key takeaways
- No one can create a new Arc account from 22 October 2026.
- Arc Search on iOS and Android loses sign-in, tab sync and AI features such as Browse for Me on 23 November 2026.
- Arc on Mac and Windows stops working on 22 December 2026. Accounts are deactivated that day, and personal data is deleted within 30 days.
- Dia can import your logins, extensions, Spaces, Favorites, pinned tabs and folders. The company says the AI features are optional.
- Atlassian bought The Browser Company for about $610 million in 2025. This shutdown is the end of that pivot.
What exactly happens in the Arc browser shutdown?
The shutdown happens in three stages, not all at once. TechCrunch first reported the schedule, and the company’s own farewell note confirms it.
| Date | What changes | Who it hits |
|---|---|---|
| 22 October 2026 | New Arc accounts can no longer be created | Anyone who hasn’t signed up yet |
| 23 November 2026 | Sign-in, tab sync and AI features (including Browse for Me) switch off. The app still works as a basic local browser | Arc Search on iOS and Android |
| 22 December 2026 | Arc stops working. Accounts are deactivated and Arc Search leaves the Google Play Store | Mac and Windows users, and every account holder |
| About 21 January 2027 | Personal data deleted (within 30 days of shutdown) | Every former account |
That last row matters most. Once the data is deleted, nobody can get your tabs or settings back for you. Export before 22 December, not after.
Why is The Browser Company killing Arc?
Arc has been on borrowed time for 17 months. On 27 May 2025, CEO Josh Miller stopped active feature work on Arc and admitted it had “fell short” of becoming a mainstream Chrome rival, as The Register reported. His diagnosis: for most people, Arc was “too different, with too many new things to learn, for too little reward.”
Then the money moved. In September 2025, Atlassian, the company behind Jira and Trello, agreed to buy The Browser Company for about $610 million in cash. Its pitch was Dia as a browser for knowledge work, wired into Atlassian’s own tools.
The official reason for the final cut is security. A browser is like a house with every window open to the internet, and someone has to keep fixing the locks. The company wrote 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.” Paying for two browsers’ worth of security patches, one of them frozen, stopped making sense.
“While we’d love to open-source Arc someday, we can’t do that meaningfully without also open-sourcing ADK. And ADK is still core to our company’s value.”
Josh Miller, CEO, The Browser Company
That quote explains why fans calling for open-source Arc will probably be disappointed. ADK, the Arc Development Kit, is the in-house layer both browsers run on. Releasing Arc’s code would mean handing out the engine that Dia, and Atlassian’s $610 million, depend on.
What moves to Dia, and what changes?
According to Thurrott, Dia’s sign-up flow imports your logins, extensions, Spaces, Favorites, pinned tabs and folders. Several Arc ideas survive, but under new names:
- Spaces become Profiles. You still switch between work and personal setups.
- Folders become Pinned Tab Groups.
- Vertical tabs are an optional sidebar, not the default.
- Split View stays.
- New in Dia: a natural-language address bar, a built-in AI assistant with optional memory, and a Morning Brief that summarises your calendar, inbox and connected apps.
The company says Arc’s features are free in Dia, AI is optional, and Dia is “a lot faster” than Arc. Nobody has independently checked that speed claim yet, so treat it as marketing until benchmarks arrive. Dia runs on Apple Silicon Macs and Windows 11 PCs, so older Intel Macs are left out.
Should you switch to Dia or walk away?
It depends on whether you loved Arc for its layout or for its maker. How-To Geek groups the options roughly like this:
- Dia: the smoothest move. Same company, one-step import, familiar sidebar.
- Chromium browsers (Edge, Brave, Opera): your Chrome extensions keep working. Most offer vertical tabs, though none feel quite like Arc.
- Gecko browsers (Firefox, Zen): the cleanest break from Google’s engine. Zen is the closest in spirit to Arc’s sidebar design.
Our opinion: if you rely on Arc’s tab system day to day, try Dia first, because the import costs you nothing. But Arc users have now watched a browser they loved get frozen and then switched off. Dia is owned by an enterprise software company with its own plans, and that is worth weighing. We covered this kind of dependency risk in our piece on AI lock-in and the traps beyond the model.
What happens next
The next hard deadline is 23 November 2026, when mobile sync and AI features go dark. Then desktop Arc stops working on 22 December, and the data deletion window closes about 30 days later.
After that, all eyes are on Dia. Atlassian has said it wants Dia closely tied to its work tools, so expect more Jira- and Confluence-style integrations. Whether Dia keeps the craft that made people love Arc is the real test for 2027.
FAQ
When does Arc stop working?
Arc on Mac and Windows stops working on 22 December 2026. Arc Search on mobile loses sign-in, sync and AI features on 23 November 2026, but keeps working as a basic local browser.
Will my Arc data be deleted?
Yes. Accounts are deactivated on 22 December 2026, and personal data is deleted within 30 days. Import into Dia, or export your bookmarks and passwords, before the deadline.
Will Arc be open-sourced?
Probably not. CEO Josh Miller has said open-sourcing Arc would also mean releasing ADK, the core engine Dia runs on, which the company sees as central to its value.
Your next step: open Arc this week, run the Dia import or export your passwords and bookmarks, and make sure nothing you care about is still in Arc on 22 December 2026.
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