Google shares final Web Store removal date for Manifest V2 extensions

Google has added one more date to its Manifest V2 shutdown timeline, and this one looks like the final cleanup step for the Chrome Web Store.

According to the updated Chrome for Developers page, all remaining Manifest V2 extensions will be removed from the Chrome Web Store on August 31, 2026. That does not mean every old extension will instantly vanish from users’ browsers, but it does mean the store will stop carrying them altogether.

Google says Manifest V2 extensions that were installed on Chrome 138 or earlier will remain installed. The catch is that they will no longer receive updates. If a user removes one of these extensions from Chrome after that point, they also will not be able to reinstall it from the Chrome Web Store.

In simple terms, if you still have an old Manifest V2 extension hanging around by then, it may keep sitting in your browser, but it will be frozen in place. No store listing, no updates, and no easy way back if it gets removed.

This is the latest step in a phase-out that has been moving along for years. Chrome already stopped accepting new public and unlisted Manifest V2 extensions back in 2022. Google later started showing warnings, disabling affected extensions, and pushing users toward Manifest V3 replacements.

More recently, we also covered how Chrome’s later changes were expected to affect users still relying on old MV2 extensions, including uBlock Origin and other tools that depended on the older system. You can read that earlier breakdown here if you want more context on Chrome removing key Manifest V2 support flags.

We did a little digging with the Wayback Machine as well, and it looks like this August 31, 2026 Web Store removal notice was added earlier this month since it wasn’t present in a cached version of the page on June 22.

That makes this specific store removal date a newer addition to Google’s public timeline.

For regular users, the main thing to know is that this does not suddenly bring back Manifest V2 support in Chrome. Google’s timeline still makes it clear that Manifest V2 has already been disabled across Chrome, and Chrome 139 is where support is removed for users moving forward.

The new 2026 date is more about what happens to the leftover listings in the Chrome Web Store. Developers who never moved their extensions to Manifest V3 are now looking at a hard end date for store availability.

That said, Chrome is not the whole browser market. Brave has already said that MV2 extensions are not going away for its users, while Opera also stepped in to clear up its own stance on the MV2 drama. And for anyone mainly worried about ad blockers like uBlock Origin, we have also looked at how Brave, Firefox, and other browsers are positioning themselves as alternatives as Chrome moves further away from Manifest V2.

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