diff --git a/pkgs/tools/graphics/swfdec/default.nix b/pkgs/tools/graphics/swfdec/default.nix
deleted file mode 100644
index d721d06ad584..000000000000
--- a/pkgs/tools/graphics/swfdec/default.nix
+++ /dev/null
@@ -1,37 +0,0 @@
-{stdenv, fetchurl
-, cairo, pango, glib, liboil, zlib, gstreamer, gst-plugins-base
-, gst-plugins-good , gtk2, libsoup, alsaLib, pkgconfig
-}:
-
-stdenv.mkDerivation rec {
-  pname = "swfdec";
-  version = "0.8.4";
-
-  src = fetchurl {
-    url = "http://swfdec.freedesktop.org/download/swfdec/0.8/swfdec-${version}.tar.gz";
-    sha256 = "00nqrd0fzf0g76rn80d7h56n6hxv7x1x6k89zj45bj564lzwc3vs";
-  };
-
-  buildInputs = [
-    cairo glib liboil pango zlib gstreamer gst-plugins-base gst-plugins-good
-    gtk2 libsoup alsaLib pkgconfig
-  ];
-  
-  postInstall = ''
-    mkdir "$out/bin"
-    cp tools/.libs/swfdec-extract "$out/bin"
-    cp tools/.libs/dump "$out/bin/swfdec-dump"
-    cp player/.libs/swfplay "$out/bin/swfplay"
-  '';
-
-  enableParallelBuilding = true;
-
-  meta = {
-    inherit version;
-    description = "Decoder/renderer for Macromedia Flash animations";
-    license = stdenv.lib.licenses.lgpl21 ;
-    maintainers = [stdenv.lib.maintainers.raskin];
-    platforms = stdenv.lib.platforms.linux;
-    homepage = "https://swfdec.freedesktop.org/wiki/";
-  };
-}
diff --git a/pkgs/top-level/aliases.nix b/pkgs/top-level/aliases.nix
index 80f85c707aad..cdfc97f26521 100644
--- a/pkgs/top-level/aliases.nix
+++ b/pkgs/top-level/aliases.nix
@@ -560,6 +560,7 @@ mapAliases ({
   suil-qt5 = suil; # added 2018-05-01
   surf-webkit2 = surf; # added 2017-04-02
   sup = throw "deprecated in 2019-09-10: abandoned by upstream";
+  swfdec = throw "swfdec has been removed as broken and unmaintained."; # added 2020-08-23
   system_config_printer = system-config-printer;  # added 2016-01-03
   systemd_with_lvm2 = throw "obsolete, enabled by default via the lvm module"; # added 2020-07-12
   systool = sysfsutils; # added 2018-04-25
diff --git a/pkgs/top-level/all-packages.nix b/pkgs/top-level/all-packages.nix
index 00735014afbc..6e3e84584242 100644
--- a/pkgs/top-level/all-packages.nix
+++ b/pkgs/top-level/all-packages.nix
@@ -7141,8 +7141,6 @@ in
 
   swec = callPackage ../tools/networking/swec { };
 
-  swfdec = callPackage ../tools/graphics/swfdec {};
-
   svnfs = callPackage ../tools/filesystems/svnfs { };
 
   svtplay-dl = callPackage ../tools/misc/svtplay-dl { };