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As of MATLAB R2025a, GUIDE is officially retired. If you’ve been using GUIDE to build apps interactively, now is the time to transition. App Designer has become the primary tool for building apps interactively in MATLAB.

Prior to R2025a, MATLAB supported two interactive tools for app development: GUIDE and App Designer. While GUIDE served well over a decade helping to create custom UIs and automate workflows, it was built on legacy Java-based technology that limits future capabilities.

Moving away from GUIDE has been a steady, planned transition, initially announcing this change in R2019a to help you prepare. With R2025a, GUIDE is now officially retired, and the focus shifts to App Designer, offering a more modern platform which provides access to the latest features.

With this change, you might be asking:

• What happens to my existing GUIDE apps?
• Will they still run in newer versions of MATLAB?
• Can I still edit or maintain them?
• Is there a tool to help me migrate my apps from GUIDE to App Designer?
• Do I really need to migrate right now?

This article aims to answer those questions and more. You’ll learn what’s changed in R2025a, how to migrate your apps using the built-in migration tool, and how App Designer improves your development workflow with interactive design, responsive layouts, and enhanced performance.

Why Retire GUIDE?

GUIDE was built on Java® Swing, a legacy framework from Oracle®. Continuing to invest in GUIDE would limit the ability of MATLAB to scale and support modern workflows—especially web-based apps.

As part of a broader transition to web-based technologies in the MATLAB R2025a release, GUIDE has been officially retired.

What is App Designer?

Figure 1: App Designer

App Designer is an interactive development environment for developing professional apps in MATLAB. App Designer combines a drag-and-drop design canvas with an integrated code editor, making it easy to design, program, and test apps all in one place. App Designer leverages modern web technologies like JavaScript, HTML, and CSS. It provides greater flexibility, access to richer UI components, and smoother integration with tools such as the App Testing Framework, MATLAB Web App Server, and more. You can create standalone desktop applications from apps built in App Designer using MATLAB Compiler™ to share them  with anyone, even if they do not have a MATLAB license. You can also package these apps as web apps that run in a browser (also using MATLAB Compiler) and deploy them using MATLAB Web App Server.

Comparing App Designer and GUIDE

App Designer is the recommended environment for interactively creating apps in MATLAB, offering a modern alternative to the legacy GUIDE tool. The table below highlights the key differences to help you understand what’s new and improved.

With App Designer, you can build apps that are easier to scale, customize, and share—whether you’re migrating from an existing GUIDE app or building a new app from scratch.

What Happens to my Existing GUIDE Apps in R2025a and Future Releases – Common Scenarios and Options

While App Designer offers clear advantages, many users still rely on existing GUIDE apps. So, what happens to those GUIDE Apps?

Your app’s requirements will determine the best path forward. The flowchart below outlines three common scenarios and the recommended strategy for each scenario.

Here’s a closer look at each scenario from the flowchart, including what you can do with your GUIDE apps in each case.

• Continue using your GUIDE app without changes
  If you want to continue using your app as is and the app does not need any layout or behavior updates, it will continue to run in MATLAB. The GUIDE development environment has been removed, not the ability to run apps created by GUIDE in earlier releases.
• Minor Update: Make occasional edits to your existing GUIDE app’s behavior and layout
  A GUIDE app consists of two files:
  – A .fig file that defines the layout and graphics objects (buttons, axes, menus, etc.)
  – An .m code file that contains initialization code and callbacks.If you only need to make occasional edits to your existing GUIDE app, such as making minor changes to maintain compatibility with MATLAB releases, you can maintain the app by editing the code file (.m) in the MATLAB Editor.

Learn more

• Major Update: Continue active development of your existing GUIDE app
  If your GUIDE apps require significant or ongoing feature development, then you can migrate your GUIDE apps using the GUIDE To App Designer Migration tool for MATLAB, which helps to automate the transition and brings your app into a modern environment that continues to receive new features.
  Learn more For more details about these scenarios, check out the documentation page.

GUIDE Apps in R2024b and Earlier Releases

For those still using earlier versions, such as MATLAB R2024b and prior, you can continue to run and edit your existing GUIDE apps. The GUIDE development environment is available, allowing you to open .fig files to modify layouts, and .m files to update behavior. However, R2024b is the final release that supports GUIDE for app building.

How to Migrate Your GUIDE Apps to App Designer

If your GUIDE apps require significant or ongoing feature development, you can move your development forward with App Designer by using the GUIDE to App Designer Migration Tool for MATLAB.

This tool automates much of the migration process, making it easier to bring your existing GUIDE apps into App Designer, where you can continue to build and edit your app’s layout and behavior interactively, with less manual code rewriting.

Features of Migration Tool

• The tool reads your GUIDE .fig file and generates the corresponding App Designer .mlapp file.

• Copies callback functions and user-defined code into the .mlapp file.
• Produces a migration report that suggests actions if any manual updates are needed.
• Supports batch migration of multiple apps.

Refer to the documentation page for more details.

Navigating the Transition: Common Challenges and Solutions

Whether you’re maintaining existing tools or building new ones, switching from GUIDE to App Designer may raise questions. Here are some common concerns and how MATLAB helps you navigate the transition:

Do I have to migrate my GUIDE app right away?
No. GUIDE is retired from R2025a onwards, but your existing apps will continue to run. If your app doesn’t require layout changes or new features, you can keep using it as is. You can also continue editing the .m code file to make behavioral updates.

I’m used to GUIDE’s programming style—what changes in App Designer?
App Designer introduces a more modern, object-oriented framework. Apps migrated using the GUIDE to App Designer migration tool still supports GUIDE-style callback patterns. This helps ease the transition without requiring a complete shift in the development approach.
Refer to the documentation page for more details.

What happens to my app during the migration process?
The GUIDE to App Designer Migration Tool recreates your app’s layout, transfers your code, and generates a migration report that flags any area needing manual updates. The tool automates most of the migration process for you. Your original GUIDE app remains unchanged—the tool creates a copy of the app as an  .mlapp file for use in App Designer.

I don’t know where to start.
You can migrate your GUIDE apps at your own pace—one app at a time or in batches. The migration tool provides step-by-step guidance, so you can modernize your apps with ease.

The example below demonstrates how to migrate a GUIDE app to an App Designer app using the GUIDE to App Designer Migration Tool shown in the video.

Example: Migrating a GUIDE App to App Designer
To show how the migration process works in practice, let’s walk through a simple example. This small GUIDE app is migrated using the GUIDE to App Designer Migration Tool (available on File Exchange), demonstrating how layout and code are carried over.

Below is the GUIDE app that lets users choose a plot type—surface, mesh, or contour—and visualize it using predefined functions from a drop down like peaks, membrane, or sinc. Here is the visual of the app migrated from the original GUIDE layout to the resulting App Designer app.

This video demonstrates the migration process for the same example described above, showing how the GUIDE to App Designer Migration Tool converts the layout, components, and code into an App Designer app. You’ll also see how the migrated app retains the same functionality in a modern, interactive design environment.

This example demonstrates how with layout conversion, callback imports, and guided follow-ups, you can modernize your apps with minimal manual effort—while continuing to build on the functionality you’ve already developed.

Watch this short demo on YouTube to see the GUIDE to App Designer Migration Tool in action.

Conclusion

Making the switch to App Designer sets you up for faster development and richer app experiences. Start exploring its modern features today to build your MATLAB apps interactively.