Samsung News app discontinued: switch your Galaxy feed by Dec. 21

The cutoff is December 21, 2026, at 00:00 UTC. Because that is a universal time stamp, it falls the evening before in North America: 7:00 p.m. Eastern, 6:00 p.m. Central and 4:00 p.m. Pacific on Sunday, December 20. US daylight saving time will already be over by then, so those are standard-time figures.

Samsung posted the notice inside the app in South Korea and India, and Samsung Members users have shared screenshots of the same message in Korean and Portuguese. The notice is expected to apply in other markets as well, but Samsung has not published a separate announcement for the US, UK or Canada. If you’re in one of those countries, open Samsung News on your own phone and look for the notice rather than relying on someone else’s screenshot.

Once the service ends, you won’t be able to use Samsung News at all. Three things go with it:

• The leftmost home screen page: the media page that showed your news feed on Galaxy phones and tablets.
• The widget: it will stop receiving new content, and Samsung recommends removing it from your home screen.
• Your data: Samsung says personal information collected for Samsung News, including profiles and personalization details, will be deleted without undue delay after shutdown. Some information may be kept for as long as laws require, then deleted.

That deletion covers data tied to this news service only. It doesn’t touch your Samsung account, your photos, your messages or your other apps.

There is also no announced way to move your followed topics or reading history to another app. If you’ve tuned the feed to specific teams, stocks or local outlets, jot down a quick list before you switch so you can follow them again.

The easiest replacement is Google Discover, which most Galaxy phones already offer as an option for that leftmost page. Here’s how to change it:

1. Touch and hold an empty part of your home screen until the editing view appears.
2. Swipe right until you reach the leftmost page.
3. Select Google Discover if it’s listed. If you’d rather have no feed there at all, turn the page off instead.
4. Long-press the Samsung News widget, if you use one, and remove it.

Menus vary by country, carrier and model, so your options may look slightly different. If Google Discover isn’t listed, your phone may still offer the toggle to switch the page off.

Google Discover is a feed that guesses what you’ll like. If you’d rather choose your sources yourself, a few other options work well on Galaxy phones:

• Google News: a separate app where you follow sources, topics and places, and hide outlets you don’t want. It is not the same product as Discover.
• Flipboard or SmartNews: third-party news apps that build a magazine-style feed from the topics you pick.
• Publisher apps: install the apps of the local paper, sports league or financial site you already trust, and set alerts inside each one.

You have about seven weeks, so there is no rush, but a little prep now saves an annoying surprise later. Run through this once:

• Open Samsung News and look for the notice. If it’s there, you know the cutoff applies to your phone. If it isn’t, prepare anyway, since the shutdown is expected to spread.
• Write down what you follow. Teams, stock tickers, local outlets and topics won’t carry over, so a quick note makes setting up the new app painless.
• Pick your replacement and try it for a week. Using Discover or Google News side by side with Samsung News tells you whether you like it before the old feed vanishes.
• Turn on alerts in the new app. If Samsung News sent you breaking news or score notifications, set those up again in whatever you switch to.
• Check every Galaxy device you own. Tablets have the same leftmost page, and it’s easy to forget a second device.

Samsung News is the latest entry in a long line of feeds on that leftmost page. It launched in 2023, replacing Samsung Free. Samsung Free had taken over from Samsung Daily in late 2020, Samsung Daily replaced Bixby Home in October 2019, and Bixby Home first appeared in April 2017. That is four products in under a decade.

The shutdown also fits a wider clean-up. Samsung is winding down Samsung Messages in the US in favor of Google Messages, it has announced the end of Daily+ on its TVs and smart monitors, and it plans to retire the Quick Measure and AR Doodle apps. The pattern is clear: where Google already offers a similar service, Samsung is dropping its own version. Samsung has not said whether a direct successor to Samsung News is coming.