How often does Chrome update now?

Chrome moves to a new major version every two weeks, starting with Chrome 153 on 8 September 2026. The previous schedule delivered a new milestone every four weeks. Chrome 154 is due on 22 September. Emergency security patches for actively exploited bugs still ship separately, whenever they are ready.

Chrome 153 is the stable release that shipped on 8 September 2026 across desktop, Android and iOS. It is the first version released under Chrome's two-week cadence. The version itself matters mainly as the starting point of the new schedule.

Do I need to do anything to get Chrome updates faster?

No. Chrome updates itself in the background on desktop, and through the Play Store or App Store on mobile. The one thing worth doing is relaunching the browser occasionally, because a downloaded desktop update only takes effect after a restart. Open the three-dot menu, then Help, then About Google Chrome to check.

Does the two-week cycle apply to Chrome on Android and iPhone?

Yes. Google says the new cadence covers all platforms, including Windows, macOS, Linux, ChromeOS, Android and iOS. The iOS build goes through Apple's App Store review, so it can appear slightly later than the desktop release.

What happens to Chrome's Extended Stable channel?

Extended Stable is unchanged and still updates every eight weeks, aimed at enterprise administrators and companies that build on Chromium. It skips intermediate milestones, moving from Chrome 156 to Chrome 160, while still receiving security fixes between those releases.

Chrome Now Updates Every Two Weeks With Chrome 153

What actually changed on 8 September

Nothing about how you update Chrome has changed. What changed is how often there is something to update to. Under the old schedule a new milestone reached stable every four weeks; from Chrome 153 onward, a new milestone reaches stable every two.

Google set the transition out well in advance. Chrome 153 branched on 17 August and was promoted to beta on 19 August before today's stable release. Chrome 154 branched on 31 August, hit beta on 2 September, and is set for stable on 22 September. Beta now runs roughly three weeks ahead of stable rather than four.

The change applies to every platform Chrome ships on: Windows, macOS, Linux, ChromeOS, Android and iOS. The Dev and Canary channels are untouched — they were already updating far more frequently than the stable channel, so there was nothing to compress.

Why Google says it moved

The stated reason is the gap between a fix being written and a fix reaching users, the window commonly called N-day. Once a patch lands in the open-source Chromium tree, the underlying bug is effectively public, and every day before that patch ships in a stable release is a day attackers can work with. Halving the release interval halves the worst case for that window on feature milestones.

Google has also pointed to the sheer volume of patches it now handles. Automated bug-finding tools and a steady stream of researcher reports have pushed the number of fixes up, and a longer cycle means more of them queued behind one release date. Faster feature delivery is the second argument: web developers get new platform capabilities into users' hands sooner.

What this does not change

Two things are worth separating out, because they are easy to conflate with the new cadence.

Emergency security updates are unaffected. Chrome has always shipped out-of-band patches for actively exploited flaws, sometimes within days. Those continue on their own timetable and were never tied to the milestone schedule.
Extended Stable stays on eight weeks. The channel aimed at enterprise administrators and Chromium embedders keeps its longer cycle, moving from Chrome 156 to Chrome 160 rather than stepping through every milestone, while still receiving security fixes in between.

Version numbers will also climb roughly twice as fast from here. A browser sniffing script or an internal tool that hard-codes a Chrome major version is now going to fall behind at double the previous rate.

How to check which version you are on

Chrome updates itself in the background on desktop, but the update only takes effect after a relaunch, which is why plenty of people sit on an old build for days without realising it.

Desktop: open the three-dot menu, choose Help, then About Google Chrome. The page checks for an update as it loads and shows a Relaunch button if one is waiting.
Android: Chrome updates through the Play Store. Open the Play Store, tap your profile picture, then Manage apps & device, and look under Updates available.
iPhone and iPad: Chrome updates through the App Store like any other app, on Apple's review timetable rather than Google's, so the iOS build can land a little behind the desktop one.

If you administer Chrome for an organisation, the practical consequence is that your testing window between beta and stable is now about three weeks, and the milestone-pinning approach that worked on a four-week rhythm needs revisiting. Extended Stable exists for exactly that case.

The wider pattern

Chrome has been speeding up for years. The browser ran on a six-week cycle until 2021, when Google cut it to four. Rival browser makers have been shortening their own schedules too, according to reports, and because Chromium code underpins Edge, Brave, Opera and Vivaldi, a faster upstream cadence tends to pull the rest of the field along with it.

For most people the practical effect is invisible: relaunch the browser a bit more often, and fixes arrive sooner. For the fuller picture on how Chrome handles security patches, our look at Chrome's 429-flaw security release covers what a typical batch contains, and Chrome versus Brave weighs the alternatives.