Google kills Tenor GIF API, forcing modifications at X, Discord, and extra

Google is so well-known for killing merchandise that there’s an entire virtual graveyard you may discover. Google’s newest shutdown now has a gravestone of its personal. Effective in the present day, Google has discontinued the Tenor API, which you might not be accustomed to by title. You’ve most likely used it, although. Tenor is a database of searchable GIFs, which used to serve animated photographs to websites like X/Twitter, Discord, and extra. Now, it solely serves Google—perhaps the gravestone is a bit untimely.

Like many Google merchandise, Tenor began as an unbiased firm. Google got here alongside and purchased Tenor in 2018, and it continued working it largely unchanged within the intervening years. Tenor was built-in into Google merchandise like Gboard and Google Messages, however the API additionally gave different platforms a manner to assist customers discover, share, and save GIFs. It’s just like companies like Giphy and Klipy.

In January, Google introduced it was going to start out winding down that API entry. It stopped accepting new integrations at the moment, and the tip date has now arrived: As of June 30, the Tenor API isn’t any extra. Google, an organization with practically 200,000 staff and greater than $130 billion in 2025 revenue, says it determined to cease supporting the picture API so it might higher focus its assets. The actual downside was most likely that Tenor was free, and Google didn’t see a manner it might make cash from a GIF API.