Twitter will shut down TweetDeck Mac app on July 1st

Twitter launched new HTML5 apps for the Internet, Windows, and Mac just a few months after spending $40 million on TweetDeck in 2011. With Elon Musk’s takeover of Twitter still on the horizon and an edit button on the way, the web browser version will be the only option. TweetDeck’s Windows client was discontinued in 2016, and versions for iOS, Android, and Adobe Air were discontinued in 2013, with the Mac version expected to be discontinued on July 1st.

The change is being made “to focus on making TweetDeck even better and testing our new Preview,” according to the team in a tweet. Twitter power users who use the app to monitor many sources of information received the notice this morning via a banner notification. Since last year, Twitter has been openly testing a revamped version of TweetDeck, and it appears that the company will no longer support the Mac software as a wrapper for the online interface.

New CEO Parag Agrawal recently fired a few top executives, and Musk has discussed the idea of increasing Twitter’s reliance on membership fees rather than advertising as a source of revenue. While Musk hasn’t taken control of the company, it’s unknown how his actions will effect this product, and limiting access could push more features into the Twitter Blue subscription or comparable bundles.

After years of not updating capabilities to compete with clients like TweetDeck or third-party solutions, Twitter’s native Mac app died in 2018.

Unlike the 2012 fiasco, when it suddenly shut down third-party apps due to tight API restrictions, Twitter has committed to opening and updating its API (and perhaps even decentralising access entirely, someday) to allow third-party clients that are viable options in 2022, but there is only one TweetDeck for many people who need to work with Twitter on their desktop at all times.

Users who want to keep using the app but don’t want it to clutter up their list of browser tabs have a couple options right now. BZG, according to 9to5Mac, offers free trials of Unite for macOS and Coherence X, which allow users to convert web apps into native apps using either a WebKit backend (Unite) or a Chromium backend (Coherence X) (Coherence). The donation-supported Tweeten, which reworks the web app as a native application for Windows (accessible from GitHub or the Microsoft Store) or macOS, or inside Chrome with a more customisable experience than the native site, is an option you have used for several years across desktop platforms.