Google soon won’t let you sign in on very old Android devices

If you still have a device running Android 2.3.7 (the final version of Gingerbread) or older, Google won’t let you sign in to your Google account on that device starting September 27th, according to a support document (via Liliputing).

“As part of our ongoing efforts to keep our users safe, Google will no longer allow sign-in on Android devices that run Android 2.3.7 or lower starting September 27, 2021,” the company says. “If you sign into your device after September 27, you may get username or password errors when you try to use Google products and services like Gmail, YouTube, and Maps.”

To give you an idea of just how old a device will be affected by this change, Android 2.3.7 was released nearly 10 years ago. But given that there are more than three billion active Android devices in the wild right now, this change will likely affect more than a few people who might still be holding on to older tech.

If you’re on Android 2.3.7 or older after that September 27th deadline, you’ll still be able to use some Google services if you’re logged in on your device’s browser, according to Google. But devices on Android 3.0 (Honeycomb) will continue to be able to log in to Google accounts, the company says, so if your older device can be updated, you might want to do that.