Paint 3D Is Gone: What Happened and What to Use Now (2026)

You can no longer install Paint 3D — Microsoft retired it and removed it from the Microsoft Store on November 4, 2024. If it is already on your PC it keeps working (without updates), but there is no official way to download it on a new machine, and any site offering a "Paint 3D download" today deserves deep suspicion. The good news is better than you expect: the ordinary Paint app quietly absorbed Paint 3D's best tricks — background removal and layers now live in the plain old Paint on Windows 11 — and everything else Paint 3D did has a free, current replacement. This page, which taught people to install Paint 3D early in 2016, now exists to walk you out the other side.

Jake ran into the retirement the way most people do: sideways. He had a little routine in Paint 3D — its Magic Select tool cut phone photos out of their backgrounds for the shop's price tags and social posts. When the front-counter PC got replaced last year, the app simply was not there, the Store listing was gone, and the first Google result offering a "Paint 3D free download" was a bundle site he wisely closed on sight. He assumed the feature was lost and started pricing a photo-editor subscription at $120 a year. Then he opened a photo in plain old Paint to crop it — and found a background-removal button sitting in the toolbar of an app he had dismissed since childhood.

Ethan: "Concept cars never go on sale. They exist so their best ideas can be stolen by the boring sedan that actually ships. Paint 3D was the concept car — and regular Paint is the sedan that drove off with its features. You were about to pay $120 a year for a button you already own."

What happened to Paint 3D, in one timeline

The retirement was not an isolated grudge against one app. It closed out Microsoft's whole 2016-era "3D for everyone" bet: Windows Mixed Reality headset support was discontinued in the same period, and the companion 3D apps faded from new installs. The bet did not pay off — most people, it turns out, wanted to remove a photo background far more often than they wanted to extrude a 3D doodle.

Still have Paint 3D installed? Here is exactly where you stand

An installed Paint 3D keeps launching and working — retirement removed the download, not the app. But understand the fine print: it receives no updates or security fixes, and the safety net is gone. Uninstall it and you cannot get it back. Reset or reinstall Windows and it will not return. Buy a new PC and there is no legitimate way to put it there. So if Paint 3D still matters to you, treat the machine that has it like the last VHS player in the house: it works, but every project you care about should be exported out of it — steps below — because the app's lifespan is now exactly the lifespan of that one Windows installation.

The plot twist: boring old Paint won

While Paint 3D was being wound down, Microsoft poured its attention into the app everyone had written off. On Windows 11, classic Paint gained layers and transparency support, a one-click background removal tool that does what Paint 3D's Magic Select did (usually faster and with less clicking), and — on recent Windows 11 with a Microsoft account, with the fuller experience on Copilot+ PCs — the AI image-generation feature called Cocreator. The 40-year-old app absorbed the futuristic app's best features and outlived it. If you only ever used Paint 3D for cutting subjects out of photos, your upgrade path is already installed: it is called Paint. (Curious whether the AI-branded hardware matters for any of this? We answered that honestly in our Copilot+ PC guide — short version: background removal needs no special hardware at all.)

How to remove a photo background in the new Paint

1. Open the photo in Paint (right-click the image → Open with → Paint).
2. On the toolbar, click the background removal button (the icon shows a figure with the backdrop being struck away — hover the toolbar buttons and the tooltip names it).
3. Wait a moment — Paint detects the subject and erases the background to transparency in one step. No tracing, no lasso.
4. Tidy stray spots with the eraser if needed, then save as PNG — PNG keeps the transparency; JPEG would flatten it onto white.

That is the entire workflow that used to justify keeping Paint 3D around. Jake's price tags now take him about forty seconds each, subscription not required.

Every Paint 3D job, and what does it now

Notice what is not on that list: anything paid. Paint 3D's entire feature set dissolved into free tools — half of them already sitting on your PC.

Rescue your old Paint 3D projects before that PC retires

Paint 3D stores projects in its own internal library — they are not sitting in your Documents folder as normal files, which is exactly why they get lost when a machine dies. On the PC that still has the app:

1. Open Paint 3D and open each project from the Paint 3D library (the app's own project list).
2. For anything you only need as a picture: Menu → Save as → Image, and pick PNG (choose transparency if the project uses it).
3. For anything genuinely 3D you may want to edit again: Menu → Save as → 3D model and choose the GLB format — the most portable option, and the one Blender opens directly.
4. Copy the exported files somewhere that outlives the machine — cloud storage or an external drive — and only then let that PC go.

Ten minutes of exporting is the difference between "my kid's school project from 2019" being a file you still have and a story you tell. Do it the same week you read this.

About those "Paint 3D free download" sites

Search for Paint 3D today and you will find sites offering the installer as a loose download. Treat every one of them as hostile. There is no official source anymore — Microsoft is the only party who could legitimately distribute it, and Microsoft stopped. A packaged Windows app from a random site can be modified before you get it, carries no updates even if it is clean, and asks you to lower your guard to install it. In 2016, this page existed because the official app had not reached every country's Store yet and there was a legitimate official package to point to. That world is gone: today the safe amount of unofficial Paint 3D to install is zero, especially when the replacements above are free and current.

The quiet lesson in the whole saga

Paint 3D was heavily promoted, preinstalled on hundreds of millions of machines, and positioned as the future — and it still disappeared in eight years. The unglamorous app it was supposed to replace is still here, better than ever. When you choose where your files and skills live, bet on the boring tool with decades of history over the shiny one with a marketing campaign; and whatever you use, keep exports of your work in open formats (PNG, GLB) that no single app's retirement can take away. That habit costs minutes and it is the only thing on this page Microsoft cannot discontinue.

FAQ — Paint 3D's retirement and replacements

Can I still download Paint 3D?

No. Microsoft removed it from the Microsoft Store on November 4, 2024, and there is no official download anywhere. Sites offering it today are unofficial and unsafe.

Does Paint 3D still work if I already have it?

Yes — installed copies keep running, just without updates or support. But it cannot survive an uninstall, a Windows reset, or a move to a new PC, so export your projects now.

Why did Microsoft kill Paint 3D?

The 2016 "3D for everyone" vision it belonged to — along with Windows Mixed Reality — never caught on with everyday users. Microsoft wound the whole family down and moved its everyday features into classic Paint and Photos.

What replaced Magic Select for removing backgrounds?

Classic Paint on Windows 11 has a one-click background-removal button in its toolbar that does the same job, usually faster. Save the result as PNG to keep the transparency.

Does regular Paint really have layers now?

Yes — Windows 11's Paint gained layers and transparency support, the two features that used to force people into bigger editors for simple jobs.

Is Paint 3D on Windows 11?

Windows 11 never shipped with it. It was briefly installable from the Store, and that door closed in November 2024. A Windows 11 PC without it today cannot get it officially.

How do I open my old Paint 3D projects without Paint 3D?

You need the app one last time: on the PC that has it, export each project — PNG for images, GLB for 3D models. Blender then opens the GLB files. Without any installed copy, the internal project library is effectively locked.

What opens .glb files now?

Blender imports GLB directly and is free. GLB is an open, widely supported 3D format — exactly why it is the right export choice for anything you want to keep.

What is the best free Paint 3D replacement for kids or school?

Tinkercad — it runs in the browser, was built for beginners and classrooms, and covers the playful shape-building part of Paint 3D better than Paint 3D did.

What about serious 3D work?

Blender — genuinely free, professionally used for modeling, sculpting, and rendering. The learning curve is real, but the ceiling is a movie studio's, not a doodling app's.

Is downloading Paint 3D from a third-party site safe?

No. There is no legitimate source since Microsoft's removal, app packages can be tampered with before you receive them, and even a clean copy gets no security updates. The safe amount is zero.

What is Cocreator in Paint?

Paint's AI image-generation feature on Windows 11 — you sketch and describe, it generates. It needs a Microsoft account, with the fullest version on Copilot+ hardware; background removal and layers need nothing special.

Did 3D Viewer and 3D Builder survive?

No — the companion 3D apps from the same era faded from new Windows installs as part of the same wind-down. Blender and Tinkercad cover their jobs today.

Can I keep Paint 3D by copying it to a new PC?

Store apps do not transfer that way — they are tied to the Store's installation system, and sideloading a copied package is unreliable and unsafe. Export the projects instead; let the app go.

Will classic Paint be retired next?

Nobody can promise forever, but the signals point the other way: Microsoft has been actively adding features to Paint — layers, background removal, AI — which is the opposite of how Paint 3D's final years looked.

I only ever used Paint 3D occasionally. Do I need to do anything?

Only one thing: if any project in its library still matters to you, export it as PNG or GLB this week. Everything else on this page can wait until you next need a feature.

Where to go next

Revision note. Originally published October 30, 2016, showing how to install Paint 3D before it reached every country's Store — when it was the most exciting app Microsoft had shown in years, and getting it early was the whole point. Rewritten August 18, 2026, from the other end of the story: the app is retired, and this page now covers what happened, how to rescue your projects, and the free tools that inherited every feature. If you loved Paint 3D, you were not wrong to — its best ideas are still on your PC, wearing a different name. Spotted something wrong or something missing? Tell me through the contact page and I will fix it. Happy creating.