What actually happened to Unscreen

The short version, for anyone who bookmarked unscreen.com and found it broken

Canva acquired Unscreen in 2021 and ran it as a separate product for several years. On December 1, 2025, Canva permanently shut the standalone service down — visiting unscreen.com today redirects straight to Canva's own video background remover page. The underlying technology didn't disappear, but using it now means subscribing to Canva Pro as a whole, not paying for background removal on its own.

RemoveGifBG vs. Canva Pro

Both can remove a background from a GIF or video — the difference is whether you need a whole design-suite subscription to do it

Canva Pro

  • ⚠️ Video background removal requires a full Canva Pro subscription (~$13–15/month)
  • ⚠️ No free tier for this specific feature
  • ⚠️ Built as one feature inside a large general design tool, not a dedicated workflow
  • ⚠️ No public API for automating background removal

RemoveGifBG ✦

  • ✓ Free watermarked preview, no signup required
  • ✓ Full downloads from a free email signup — no subscription required to start
  • ✓ Animated GIF and MP4/MOV video, every frame processed
  • ✓ GIF, APNG, WebM, and MP4 export
  • ✓ Batch processing — up to 5 files at once
  • ✓ REST API available on the Pro plan

Unscreen shutdown FAQ

Is Unscreen still around?

No. Unscreen was acquired by Canva in 2021 and the standalone unscreen.com service permanently shut down on December 1, 2025. Its technology was folded into Canva Pro's Video Background Remover — it's no longer available as an independent tool, and old Unscreen accounts and API keys stopped working.

What do I use now that Unscreen is gone?

Canva folded the feature into Canva Pro, which costs around $13–15/month (or roughly $120/year) as part of its full design-suite subscription — you can't buy just the background remover on its own. RemoveGifBG is a standalone alternative built specifically for animated GIFs and video, with a free tier so you don't need a design-suite subscription just to remove a background.

Does RemoveGifBG handle MP4 video and animated GIFs?

Yes, both. Every frame of a GIF or video is analyzed and processed automatically, and you can export as GIF, APNG, WebM, or MP4 depending on what you need.

Do I need a subscription to try it?

No. Anyone can process a file (up to 100 MB) and preview it — first 2 seconds, watermarked, right in the browser — with no signup at all. A small pool of free credits (no signup) covers full downloads; after that, a full download costs a small credit — free ones come from signing up with an email or adding a card on file — there's no requirement to subscribe to anything just to test it.