Microsoft is Killing Paint 3D in November

In 2016, Microsoft was plotting to replace the OG Paint app in Windows with a new Paint 3D app. Today, that app is dead. My only regret is that it ever happened in the first place: I still use Paint every single day, and while it went through a dark period during a years-long modernization, it’s more useful and usable today than it’s ever been.

Paint 3D? Not so much.

Paint 3D debuted in 2017, but we wrote about it first on Thurrott.com in October 2016, when it appeared to be a radical redesign of the original Paint app, which dates back to Paintbrush in Windows 1.0 from 1985. (Technically, it dates back to 1984, as Windows Paintbrush was a licensed version of ZSoft PC Paintbrush, which debuted as a PC-based alternative to MacPaint one year earlier. But let’s not get sidetracked here.) Paint 3D was a key component in Microsoft’s ill-fated “Creator” series of updates to Windows 10, and it stands as a key example of why the UWP app wave was always going to fail. Like the Fisher-Price Metro/Modern apps that preceded it, Paint 3D was a dog, a simplistic-looking app that focused on use cases few needed while not providing the rich functionality of its predecessor.

Incredibly, Microsoft indicated in 2017 that it would remove the original Paint in a coming Windows 10 update and replace it with Paint 3D. The plan at the time was to bring Paint to the Microsoft Store so that fans could still access the app, but customers were so upset that it quickly reversed course. (“It will remain in Windows 10 for now,” a Microsoft representative said in a typically ham-handed statement of that era.)

By 2019, Paint 3D, like the other 3D apps in experiences in Windows 10, had failed. And so Microsoft did the unexpected: It admitted it would keep Paint in Windows for good, it deprecated Paint 3D and then didn’t include it with Windows 11. And then it–incredibly–began modernizing Paint to bring its user interface into the modern era.

That didn’t go well at first: The initial Paint refresh was terrible, it ignored the dark and light themes in Windows 10/11 and provided just a stark white interface, and Microsoft somehow managed to kill keyboard navigation. And Microsoft inexplicably let it sit unfixed like that until early 2023, when a random update made the app even worse. Finally, in mid-2023, Microsoft corrected the issues with Paint, implementing proper dark/light mode support. And it’s updated the app several times since then, adding features like Background Removal, layers and transparency, and Image Creator. Those with Copilot+ PCs can also access a unique Crocreator feature that uses the PC’s NPU and local AI models.

But the best change to Paint was when the “Open in Paint 3D” button was removed from the app’s toolbar (a fake ribbon that takes up too much space and isn’t collapsible).

To date, Paint 3D has been available in Windows 10 and the Microsoft Store for its few users. But now, that’s over: A new informational banner in the app tells users that “Paint 3D won’t be available in the Microsoft Store or receive updates starting on November 4, 2024.” So it’s shifting from deprecated and removed to being unsupported and dead. I’m just sad it took so long: Paint 3D was emblematic of so many mistakes, the worst of which was believing that it could somehow replace Paint.

But Microsoft hasn’t lost its skill for miscommunication: The link in the app brings you to a Microsoft Learn page about deprecated features in Windows. That doesn’t mention Paint 3D at all. It’s the perfect ending.