JetBrains drops Swift editing from the Kotlin Multiplatform plugin, citing low and falling use
Serguey Asael Shinder1 min readJetBrains is removing Swift language features from the Kotlin Multiplatform (KMP) plugin, the company said on 5 October. The change applies from IntelliJ IDEA 2026.3 and Android Studio Rabbit 2 (2026.2.2).
What goes. Editing, syntax highlighting and navigation inside Swift files, and navigation between Swift and Kotlin code. What stays. Running iOS applications and debugging Kotlin code on iOS remain fully supported. Kotlin/Native features, including Swift Export and importing Swift packages into Kotlin projects, are not affected. Older versions of IntelliJ IDEA, Android Studio and the plugin keep the Swift features, but will not be updated.
Why. The Swift support descends from AppCode, JetBrains' discontinued iOS IDE, and was later reused in Fleet and then in the KMP plugin. JetBrains says its telemetry and user research showed active use was limited and declining: most iOS developers on KMP projects write Swift in Xcode, while teams who work mainly in the plugin increasingly write Kotlin and Compose Multiplatform. Keeping the AppCode-derived tooling compatible with changes in Swift, Xcode and the IntelliJ Platform took substantial ongoing work, and after weighing that against usage the company decided not to continue. It does not plan a replacement.
What it means. For mixed Kotlin–Swift teams the IDE split becomes formal: Swift in Xcode, Kotlin in IntelliJ or Android Studio. Teams that relied on cross-language navigation inside one IDE lose it on upgrade, and their choices are to stay on an older version or change workflow.