Retirement and migration of some versions of StoryMaps
ArcGIS StoryMaps are here to stay and continue to be made even better. However, some of their relatives are heading out: StoryMaps.com and Classic Esri Story Maps.
StoryMaps.com
On June 30, 2025, StoryMaps.com (Esri’s consumer-facing storytelling platform) is retiring, but you can migrate your StoryMaps.com account to ArcGIS Online and receive a complimentary subscription to ArcGIS Online. This retirement means StoryMaps.com will go offline and any StoryMaps.com content not migrated to ArcGIS Online will not be available to edit or view. If you have content you want to migrate, you have until May 31, 2025 to request that Esri migrate your account to ArcGIS Online.
Once in ArcGIS Online, you’ll be able to use ArcGIS StoryMaps to manage your past stories and create new ones. Sign in to StoryMaps.com to request migration, or learn more about the retirement.
If you use StoryMaps.com, your web experience looks like this:
Migration from StoryMaps.com for educators
If you are an educator migrating from StoryMaps.com, you need to do the following: (1) migrate to a Creator user type subscription, (2) get an account in an education subscription, and (3) duplicate your stories from your migrated account into the education account.
Here are detailed steps for doing so:
- Sign in to StoryMaps.com and request migration to a Creator user type subscription (for details, see “How do I migrate to ArcGIS online?” in the StoryMaps.com migration blog).
Once migrated, you’ll have an ArcGIS Online account. Here, we refer to that account as your “migrated ArcGIS Online account.” - Get an account in an education subscription.
Here, we refer to this account in an educational license as your “education ArcGIS Online account.”
The process to get an account differs for higher education and K-12:- K-12: Get an account in an ArcGIS for Schools Bundle. Your district or school might already have access, or you may need to work with your district IT to request a bundle.
- Higher education: See Does my university have ArcGIS? and work with your institution to get access.
- Duplicate your stories from your migrated ArcGIS Online account into your education ArcGIS Online account by taking the following steps:
- Sign in ArcGIS StoryMaps using your migrated ArcGIS Online account.
- For each story you want to preserve, allow duplication and share the story with your education ArcGIS Online account as follows:
- Open the story for editing and click Publish.
- In the Publish options > Share > Advance options, check Allow duplication.
- In the Publish options > Share dialog, Set sharing level to Everyone (Public).
You can always revert this to Private after you duplicate the story. If you aren’t comfortable even temporarily sharing your story publicly, you can use a group to share the story with your education ArcGIS Online account.
- Sign in to ArcGIS Online using your education ArcGIS Online account.
- Open each story you want to duplicate, click More actions (the three dots in the upper-right corner) and click Duplicate story to make a copy of it in your education ArcGIS Online account.
If you aren’t signed in, Duplicate story will be disabled.
- Continue forward always using your education ArcGIS Online account and the stories you duplicated into it. Make note of the new URLs (and IDs) of your stories and update your assignment references to your stories to use the new URLs.
Your migrated ArcGIS Online account will eventually require you to renew it, and renewals can’t be done with education pricing.
Classic Esri Story Maps
In Q1 of 2026, Classic Esri Story Maps is retiring (and it already retired with ArcGIS Enterprise 11.0). This means that after that date, the Classic Esri Story Maps templates won’t be available and stories in them won’t be accessible. Transition your content into ArcGIS StoryMaps to retain access to it and have a modern storytelling experience.
See Managing the classic Esri Story Maps retirement in your organization for instructions, tools, and recommendations, and also to learn more about the Classic Esri Story Maps Roadmap for Retirement.
Classic Story Maps have a variety of web experiences. To tell if your story is in a Classic Story Map template or the modern ArcGIS StoryMaps, look at the URL when you are reading the story. If it starts with https://storymaps.arcgis.com/stories, you are using the latest and greatest. If not, it’s time to migrate.
ArcGIS StoryMaps are alive and well
Again, ArcGIS StoryMaps are not retiring and remain the geospatial storytelling app of choice. Keep creating StoryMaps, but make sure your old content isn’t lost when StoryMaps.com and Esri Story Maps (Classic Story Maps) retire.