Drupal 12 Will Remove Search, Claro and Olivero from Core

Three familiar Drupal core extensions will leave core in Drupal 12.0.0: the Search module and the Claro and Olivero themes. Published change records for Olivero, Search, and Claro were published on 18, 19, and 20 September 2026 respectively. Each record identifies the removal as a Drupal 12.0.0 change.

Sites that continue using the three extensions will need to carry them as contributed projects rather than rely on copies supplied by core. Stable contributed releases are now available for Search, Claro, and Olivero, and Drupal core's removal trackers show that manual upgrade-path testing has been completed for all three. The transition therefore has documented paths for retaining the extensions across the Drupal 11-to-12 boundary.

Search 1.0.0 was released on 17 September 2026 with support for Drupal 11.5 and Drupal 12. The stable release is covered by Drupal's security advisory policy and uses the Composer package drupal/search-search:^1.0, rather than drupal/search. The manual upgrade test moved Search from its core version to the contributed project and then upgraded the site to Drupal's main development branch. Changed Search settings, including logging, the default search selection, minimum word length, and a modified help URL, remained in place after the upgrade.

Claro 3.0.0 followed on 19 September 2026 with support for Drupal 11.5 and Drupal 12. The contributed theme can be required as drupal/claro:^3.0, and its project page describes the 3.0.x branch as the copy removed from Drupal 12 core. The project is currently marked minimally maintained and limited to maintenance fixes, while Drupal's deprecated-extension documentation directs sites toward the Default Admin theme for the future administration interface. A manual Claro upgrade test also completed successfully, retaining a custom logo and a changed user-picture setting after the move to Drupal's main development branch.

Olivero reached its first stable contributed release on 21 September 2026. Olivero 2.0.0 supports Drupal 11.4 and Drupal 12 and can be added with drupal/olivero:^2.0. Its project documentation says sites using Olivero can add the contributed project ahead of the Drupal 12 upgrade while Drupal 11 continues using the copy supplied by core. The contributed project also states that the theme's configuration, regions, templates, and settings remain unchanged from the core version.

Drupal's manual Olivero upgrade test provides a more specific check of that handoff. Testing began with Olivero on Drupal 11.4.7, added the contributed project, and then moved the site to Drupal's main development branch. A custom logo, user-picture setting, shortcut icon setting, header background, and colour scheme remained set after the upgrade. The test was closed as fixed on 21 September, removing the earlier upgrade-verification caveat around the theme.

Olivero's departure from core also coincides with a change in what new Standard installations assume about front-end theming. The contributed project's documentation says Drupal 12's Standard profile no longer installs a front-end theme automatically, making Olivero an explicit choice instead of the default. Olivero had served as Drupal core's default front-end theme from Drupal 9.4 through Drupal 11.

The completed tests reduce uncertainty around retaining the three extensions, but they do not remove the need to account for them during upgrade preparation. Drupal's extension-removal guidance directs sites to add contributed versions of extensions they intend to keep before core stops providing them. Dependencies in site configuration, custom code, distributions, recipes, and automated tests therefore still need to be identified as part of Drupal 12 preparation.

The currently published Drupal 12 release does not yet contain the three removals. As of 28 September 2026, the official Drupal 12 release page still lists Drupal 12.0.0-alpha1, whose release notes state that Search, Claro, and Olivero had not yet been removed. The change records, contributed releases, completed upgrade tests, and updated deprecated-extension documentation therefore describe changes committed for Drupal 12.0.0 rather than behaviour available in a published Drupal 12 beta or stable release.