Panels, the curated wallpaper app from tech personality Marques Brownlee, is shutting down at the end of this month. Purchases are down, downloads linger for the moment, and current subscribers will automatically receive prorated refunds. After the shutdown, Brownlee is going to release the app code under the Apache 2.0 license, which means that community-led successors are not off the cards.
Panels started as a place to share the wallpapers seen in Brownlee’s videos and soon after developed into being a platform aimed to spotlight visual artists. When it was released, it rose to the top spot of Google Play and Apple’s App Store Photos category. To date, the company has seen over two million wallpapers downloaded by its users. The rollout wasn’t perfect, but early stumbles were corrected, and the product hit an audience.
What Users Need to Do Now as Panels Shuts Down
New Collections are no longer available for purchase via Panels, and in-app downloads will cease when the app is pulled from stores. If you have saved sets of DJ styles to your own library, it’s time to grab them so that they’ll remain on your device after the shutdown. Anything you have downloaded already will remain in your local gallery.
Active subscriptions will be automatically refunded, in this case on a prorated basis; no action is required by users to initiate the refund process, although requests for manual refunds can be made. The team also confirms that all user data which relates to Panels will be deleted permanently following the shutdown of the service.
Why Panels Is Closing and What Prompted the Decision
The change in focus of development resources and an inability to find the right long-term fit are reasons Brownlee’s team is winding down, according to a press release on Monday.
Instead of letting the app carry on limping along without a clear strategy, they’ve decided to make a clean exit. It’s a classic crossroads for creator-led apps: There is some initial traction to be gained, but sustaining velocity requires a stable, specialized team and a steady roadmap.
There’s also the complexity of the mobile market. Industry analyses by companies like the research firm always do a great job of illustrating how utility apps feature steep retention curves and reliance on support. Even with rankings to the skies at launch, Panels achieved remarkable visibility and usage, but the team realized that continued growth without those essential collaborators wasn’t feasible.
What Open Sourcing Means for Panels in the Future
Perhaps the biggest news is that it won’t just be readable code. Through this permissive license, managed by the Apache Software Foundation and therefore widely in use throughout Android’s open-source ecosystem, developers can fork, tailor, and ship their own versions with ownership information and appropriate license notices. In effect, that allows independent teams to extend Panels, fix bugs, implement new features, or even rebuild the service around community infrastructure.
If a GitHub repo lands right after something gets open-sourced elsewhere, await speedy tinkering: ports that speed up offline access; artist-first dashboards to simplify finding the right images; tighter on-device privacy; or A.I.-powered search for patterns and color palettes. Open-source projects with a shiny codebase and an already large user base can move fast, especially when the problem space is limited.
Effect on Artists and the Wallpaper Ecosystem
Panels attempted to reconcile two goals: make it easy for people to use interesting wallpapers, but offer artists a curated platform. With the app one foot in the grave, creators who participated will consider other ways to produce their work. The likes of established platforms Backdrops and Walli, direct storefronts like Gumroad, and personal portfolios are still viable routes, while an eventual open-source fork of Panels could see a familiar pipeline resurrected (if handed off to some volunteers).
For users, the near-term action is simple: Save what you love. For artists, the opportunity to contribute to a future community-owned iteration is likely the most hopeful outcome of code being released; one that prioritizes attribution, discovery, and curation.
The Bottom Line on Panels’ Shutdown and Open Sourcing
Panels is wrapping up, but the story’s not over. Users will receive refunds, and the content that they have already downloaded remains theirs. By open-sourcing the app upon its shutdown, Brownlee is providing the community with a roadmap for whatever comes next — whether that’s a faithful continuation of the current project, a slimmer offline toolset, or an all-new artist-first market built off this same tech stack.
