SharePoint Add-ins Stopped Working: How to Find and Replace Each One

Quick answer: what happened to SharePoint add-ins? Microsoft retired SharePoint Add-ins in SharePoint Online on April 2, 2026. Both SharePoint-hosted and provider-hosted add-ins stopped working in every tenant, government clouds included, and Azure ACS authentication stopped with them. No tenant setting, vendor update or renewed secret brings them back. SharePoint Framework (SPFx) solutions, the REST API, CSOM and app catalogs are not affected, and add-ins deployed through an on-premises app catalog on SharePoint Server keep working.

Quick answer: what replaces a SharePoint add-in? Whatever the add-in did. Find every add-in your tenant had with the Microsoft 365 Assessment tool, then replace each one by its job: a built-in SharePoint feature where it is enough, an SPFx app from Microsoft Marketplace where it is not, and SPFx with Microsoft Entra ID for add-ins your own developers built.

What changed on April 2, 2026

SharePoint Add-ins came with SharePoint 2013. A SharePoint-hosted add-in brought pages and app parts into a site; a provider-hosted add-in ran on the vendor’s own servers and called back into SharePoint through Azure Access Control Services (ACS). Microsoft wound the model down in steps:

Fig. 1. SharePoint Add-in retirement timeline. Source: Microsoft Learn

Three things did not change. SPFx web parts and extensions, the REST API, CSOM and JSOM keep working. Tenant and site app catalogs stay and keep accepting SPFx packages. The SharePoint Store still offers SPFx solutions.

There is also no way back. Microsoft’s retirement pages say that the tenant setting IsSharePointAddInsDisabled does not extend or restore add-ins, that renewing the secret of an ACS principal does not restore ACS authentication, and that a vendor update cannot restore a retired add-in. The only way forward is a replacement.

What people see now

Where an add-in’s app part sat on a page, readers now see an error or an empty box. Opening a retired add-in from Site contents does not open the app either.

Our own retired add-in, Alerts for Office 365 by Virto, showed two messages after the deadline. In April 2026, a customer who opened its dashboard got the message “Sorry, the service you’re looking for is no longer available.” By July, the same click led to Microsoft’s “Add-In Deprecation Announcement” page, at an address ending in /_layouts/15/AddinDeprecationAnnoucement.aspx (Microsoft spells it that way), and it still does. Both mean that the add-in itself is retired: nothing in your site or browser needs fixing, and nothing brings the add-in back.

Background jobs fail without anything on screen: a provider-hosted add-in that sent email, synced data or reacted to list changes through a remote event receiver simply stopped.

Step 1: find every add-in you had

Start with an inventory, because broken app parts are only the visible part. Microsoft recommends the Microsoft 365 Assessment tool, a free command-line scanner from the Microsoft 365 PnP community; the retirement page, rewritten after the deadline, still points to it. Its SharePoint Add-In Report shows:

• every add-in in the tenant, and on which sites it is installed;
• where it came from, the public marketplace or your app catalog, and who installed it;
• for provider-hosted add-ins, the Azure ACS principal they used, whether it is still valid, and the permissions it requested.

To run it:

1. Download the latest release from the Microsoft 365 Assessment tool site. It runs on Windows, macOS and Linux. On Windows it builds a Power BI report; on macOS and Linux you get the same data as CSV files.
2. Register a Microsoft Entra application for the tool with read-only permissions. For an app-only scan that is Microsoft Graph Sites.Read.All and Application.Read.All and SharePoint Sites.Read.All; for a scan as a signed-in admin, Microsoft Graph Sites.Read.All, Application.Read.All and User.Read and SharePoint AllSites.Read.
3. Start the scan:

   microsoft365-assessment.exe start --mode AddInsACS --authmode application --tenant contoso.sharepoint.com --applicationid <application-id> --certpath "My|CurrentUser|<certificate-thumbprint>"
   

4. Follow it with microsoft365-assessment.exe status, then build the report with microsoft365-assessment.exe report --id <assessment-id>.

If you only need to know whether one particular add-in is still installed, the SharePoint Online Management Shell answers faster. Get-SPOAppInfo -Name "Calendar" lists installed apps whose names contain “Calendar”, with their product ID and source (0 for the app catalog, 1 for the marketplace). The cmdlet needs a name or a product ID; it does not list everything at once.

Then sort what you found. For each add-in write down what it did (a calendar, a board, a form, notifications, a slideshow, file operations, a workflow, something custom), how often people used it, and whether it kept data of its own. An add-in nobody opened in the last year can simply be removed later. One that a team used every day needs a replacement this week.

Check the data before you remove anything. A SharePoint-hosted add-in could keep list items in its own app web. Microsoft notes that the app web is deleted when the add-in is uninstalled, and that restoring the add-in from the recycle bin restores the app web too. Copy that data out first, with the REST API or a script. A provider-hosted add-in may have kept its data on the vendor’s servers, so ask the vendor what happens to it and whether their current product can read it.

Step 2: pick a replacement for each kind of add-in

Microsoft’s own advice for add-ins bought from a vendor is to ask that vendor for a version that does not depend on the add-in model. Our own former add-ins, for example, now run as SPFx apps: Virto Calendar App and Virto Alerts & Reminder App. Where the vendor has nothing, or the built-in features are enough, the sections below show the options for each kind of add-in.

Calendar add-ins

Built into SharePoint Online:

• A calendar view of any list or library that has a date column, by day, week or month. It shows one list.
• The Events web part, which lists upcoming events from an events list, a site, several sites or a hub, in a Filmstrip or Compact layout.
• The Group calendar web part, which puts a Microsoft 365 group’s calendar on a page. It works only on group-connected team sites and is not available in Microsoft 365 GCC High or Office 365 operated by 21Vianet.

When one list is not enough: Virto Calendar App is an SPFx solution with two web parts, Virto Calendar and the compact Virto Mini Calendar. It shows SharePoint lists from any site together with Outlook and shared calendars, Microsoft 365 group calendars, room mailboxes, Planner tasks, Exchange public folders and internet calendars, color-coded in one calendar, and the same calendars open in Microsoft Teams. Events stay in their sources: a change made in the calendar goes back to the list or mailbox it came from.

Limits to know: Virto Calendar App sends no reminders of its own; it does not share a calendar with people from other tenants or by anonymous link; public folder calendars need Exchange Web Services to be enabled in the tenant; and it does not run on SharePoint Server. Every user is licensed, read-only users included. There is a 30-day free trial and no free plan.

If the retired add-in was ours, the old Virto Calendar add-in, your calendars carry over: they were never stored in the add-in. Switching from the retired add-in walks through the switch page by page.

Kanban board add-ins

Built into SharePoint Online: the board view of a list shows items as cards in buckets by a choice column, and moving a card to another bucket changes that column. It covers a simple task board on one list.

When a team needs more than one list on a board: Virto Kanban Board App runs as a web part or a full-page app in SharePoint Online and as a tab in Microsoft Teams. A board shows one or several lists of a site collection, with swimlanes, WIP limits, subtasks, checklists, comments, board history and charts such as burndown and lead time. The cards are the list items themselves, so nothing is copied out of SharePoint.

Limits to know: it works with SharePoint lists only and does not sync with Planner or To Do; it has no timeline, task dependencies or time tracking; it sends no notifications itself (they come from Virto Alerts & Reminder App, included in the subscription); and board permissions can narrow SharePoint rights but never extend them. There is a 30-day free trial and no free plan.

Form add-ins

Built into SharePoint Online: the list form can get a custom header, footer and body sections through JSON, and each column can be shown or hidden by a formula on another column’s value. Formulas do not support several column types, among them multi-select person, choice and lookup columns, managed metadata and calculated columns. For complex logic or external data there is Power Apps.

When you want to design rather than write formulas: Virto Forms Designer App replaces the New, Edit and Display forms of a list in a drag-and-drop designer: tabs, sections and accordions, several forms per list for different groups, and fields hidden or locked for chosen users. It opens from the Virto Forms button in the list’s command bar.

Limits to know: rules, validation and cascading lookups are written in JavaScript in the designer; it has no repeating sections and no external data connections; in a library it designs the Edit and Display forms, because the New form is the file upload; hiding a field does not change who may edit it; and publishing a form needs custom script on the site, which SharePoint allows for up to 24 hours at a time. One subscription covers the tenant with unlimited forms and users, and there is a 30-day free trial. If your forms came from InfoPath rather than an add-in, our InfoPath end of life guide covers that migration.

Alert and reminder add-ins

Notification add-ins often stopped at a bad moment, because SharePoint’s own alerts are gone too: since January 2026 no tenant can create a new SharePoint alert, and from July 2026 the existing ones stopped. SharePoint Alerts retirement covers that change.

Built into SharePoint Online: rules on a list or library email someone when data in the list changes, a new file arrives in the library, or a date approaches (at most two date rules per list or library). Anything beyond that, such as conditions on several columns, summaries or Teams messages, is a Power Automate flow. What it costs to replace SharePoint alerts with Power Automate counts the licenses and the upkeep.

When you need many rules without building flows: Virto Alerts & Reminder App sends email alerts when list or library items are added, changed or deleted, reminders a set number of days before or after a date column, and daily or weekly summaries as one table. Rules take conditions on field values, and messages can also post to a Teams channel.

Limits to know: it works with SharePoint lists and libraries only, in the modern view; it sends email and Teams channel messages, but no SMS and no one-to-one chat; it has no escalation or approval chains; and because its background service uses application permissions, a Global Administrator or Privileged Role Administrator gives consent once. It is licensed by the number of rules, not by users, with a 30-day free trial. If the retired add-in was ours, Alerts for Office 365 by Virto, removing it does not delete your alerts: see Install Virto Alerts and Reminders after the add-in retirement.

Slideshow and image carousel add-ins

Built into SharePoint Online: the Image gallery web part shows pictures you pick one by one, in a Tiles, Bricks or Carousel layout. In the Carousel, readers move between images with arrows; automatic cycling is still limited to organizations on Targeted Release with a CDN enabled. The Hero web part features up to five items with images, text and links.

When the slideshow should follow a library: Virto Slideshow App is a free SPFx web part that shows the images of a document or picture library, filtered and sorted by one of the library’s views, so adding a picture to the library adds a slide. Slides advance on their own every 3 to 60 seconds, with a caption from the file name or a column, an optional link, three themes and 16 transition effects.

Limits to know: it shows images only (PNG, BMP, GIF, JPG, TIF), from one library per web part, and it does not run on SharePoint Server.

Bulk file operation add-ins

Built into SharePoint Online: you can drag files and whole folders into a library; select several files and use Move to or Copy to, even to another site; and edit the properties of several items at once in the details pane.

When the job is hundreds of files at a time: Virto Multiple Operations adds two buttons to the command bar. Bulk Upload in a document library takes many files with their folder structure, can overwrite existing files, and shows progress you can stop. Bulk Delete in a list or library removes items that match a filter on columns such as title, author or date, combined with AND and OR, to the recycle bin or permanently.

Limits to know: it uploads and deletes; to copy or move files, use SharePoint’s own Move to and Copy to. It does not run on SharePoint Server, where Virto Multiple File Operations On-Premises does that job. There is a 30-day free trial.

Workflow add-ins

Approval and process add-ins, and SharePoint 2013 workflows, which retired the same day, move to Power Automate in SharePoint Online. VirtoSoftware has no workflow app for SharePoint Online.

Add-ins your own developers built

Microsoft’s guidance splits the rewrite in two. What the add-in showed on a page becomes an SPFx web part or extension. What ran on a server becomes an ordinary web application that signs in through Microsoft Entra ID, optionally with an SPFx front end or a Teams app. Remote event receivers registered through ACS stopped on April 2, 2026; their replacement is SharePoint webhooks. Webhooks are asynchronous, so a receiver that cancelled an action, for example to block a delete, needs a different design, such as tighter permissions. Microsoft’s add-in modernization guidance has articles and videos for each pattern.

Step 3: put the replacement on the pages

For an SPFx app from Microsoft Marketplace, the switch usually takes these steps. They are the ones our documentation gives for Virto Calendar App:

1. A SharePoint Administrator opens the app’s Marketplace listing and selects Get it now. On the Manage apps page of the SharePoint admin center, they select Add to Apps site.
2. In the Enable app panel they choose whether to add the app to all sites. If they don’t, a site owner adds it on each site under Site contents > New > App > From your organization.
3. If the app asks for API permissions, an administrator grants them once for the tenant. For Virto Calendar App, Virto Kanban Board App and Virto Forms Designer App that is a Global, Cloud Application or Application Administrator; for Virto Alerts & Reminder App, which uses application permissions, a Global Administrator or Privileged Role Administrator. Virto Slideshow App and Virto Multiple Operations ask for no extra permissions.
4. On each page that had the old app part, select Edit, delete the app part, add the new web part from the toolbox, configure it and Republish.

When the new web part works, clean up. Remove the retired add-in from Site contents once its data is safe. ACS principals of provider-hosted add-ins expire on their own after two years by default; to delete them sooner, use _layouts/15/appprincipals.aspx on the site collection for site permissions, and Enterprise applications in Microsoft Entra for tenant permissions.

Still on SharePoint Server?

The retirement does not touch SharePoint Server. Add-ins deployed through an on-premises app catalog keep working on SharePoint Server; only acquiring new ones from the public marketplace ended on April 2, 2026. If you run a hybrid environment, inventory the two sides separately: the same product may still work on-premises and be broken online. For SharePoint Server, VirtoSoftware makes on-premises web parts for the same jobs, among them Virto Calendar On-Premises, Virto Kanban Board On-Premises, Virto Form Designer On-Premises and Virto Notifications & Alerts On-Premises.

Common mistakes

• Uninstalling an add-in before copying its data. The app web goes with it.
• Waiting for a fix. Tenant settings, renewed secrets and vendor updates cannot restore a retired add-in.
• Rebuilding what the vendor already rebuilt. Ask first: the vendor may already ship an SPFx version.
• Fixing only what people complain about. A broken app part gets reported; a notification that silently stopped does not. Go through the whole inventory.
• Treating SharePoint Server as affected. On-premises add-ins keep working, so don’t plan a migration there on this deadline.

FAQ

Can SharePoint add-ins be turned back on?

No. Since April 2, 2026, SharePoint Add-ins and Azure ACS authentication no longer work in any SharePoint Online tenant. The IsSharePointAddInsDisabled setting, a renewed ACS secret or a vendor update cannot restore them. Replace each add-in with an SPFx solution or a built-in feature.

Are SharePoint Framework web parts affected by the add-in retirement?

No. SPFx is Microsoft’s recommended way to extend SharePoint and is not part of the retirement. The REST API, CSOM, JSOM and app catalogs keep working too. Only the separate retirement of SPFx domain-isolated web parts concerns SPFx, and regular SPFx web parts are not affected by it.

Do SharePoint add-ins still work on SharePoint Server?

Yes. Add-ins deployed through an on-premises app catalog keep working on SharePoint Server. What ended on April 2, 2026 for SharePoint Server is getting new add-ins from the public marketplace.

How do I find which add-ins my tenant had?

Run the Microsoft 365 Assessment tool in its add-ins mode (–mode AddInsACS). Its SharePoint Add-In Report lists every add-in per site, where it came from, who installed it and, for provider-hosted add-ins, the ACS principal and its permissions.

What happens to the data an add-in stored?

A SharePoint-hosted add-in may keep data in its own app web, which is deleted when the add-in is uninstalled, so copy that data out first. A provider-hosted add-in may have kept its data with the vendor; ask the vendor how to get it or whether their new product reads it.

Conclusion

The add-ins are not coming back, but most of them did one recognizable job, and that job has a replacement. Run the assessment, save any data the add-ins kept, then go through the list kind by kind: use a built-in SharePoint feature where it is enough, ask your vendor for its SPFx version, and rebuild your own add-ins on SPFx and Microsoft Entra ID. If a calendar, a board, a form, notifications, a slideshow or a bulk file tool is on the list, the Virto apps above do those jobs in SharePoint Online. Virto Slideshow App is free, and the other five have a 30-day free trial.