Google to shut down App Maker in 2021

Google has announced that due to low usage, App Maker will be turned down gradually over the course of 2020 and officially shut down on January 19, 2021. Prior to the shutdown, users will need to review App Maker usage in their domains and take any necessary action.

App Maker will be disabled gradually according to the schedule below:

• Today, existing apps continue to work. Though App Maker is no longer under active development, the service will continue to be maintained.
• Starting April 15, 2020, you will no longer be able to create new App Maker apps. You will still be able to edit and deploy existing apps.
• Starting January 19, 2021, existing App Maker apps will stop working and you will no longer have access to them. App maker data stored in Cloud SQL will remain unchanged and continue to follow the policies established by your Google Cloud Platform (GCP) account.

Due to the specific source code used for App Maker, you can’t directly migrate your apps to another platform. Depending on your use case, Google recommends the following:

• If you use App Maker to automate business processes: Use AppSheet, a new addition to our application development portfolio that has capabilities similar to App Maker. App Maker data is stored in Cloud SQL and App Sheet supports Cloud SQL databases. This allows you to build an application on the existing database tied to your App Maker app.
• If you use App Maker to develop apps: Use App Engine to build and deploy applications on a fully managed platform. App Maker data is stored in Cloud SQL, allowing you to build an App Engine application on the existing Cloud SQL database tied to your App Maker app.
• If you use App Maker for data collection: Use Google Forms which has many new features that were not available when App Maker launched. 

If you no longer use apps created with App Maker, please follow these steps to fully delete each app:

• Export the app before deleting to save database information.
• Delete the app in App Maker
• Delete the associated Cloud project.

Your App Maker data belongs to your organisation. Data composing the App Maker app itself is already exported from within the App Maker editor. This export functionality will continue to work until January 19th, 2021.

Google recently emailed the primary admin in your domain and provided a CSV file with a list of the App Maker apps being used in your organisation. This list includes the application name, creator name and last modified date for each app. It also contains a link to your Admin console with application-specific usage stats and project information.