Google Issues Warning For May 2026 Pixel 10 Update

The May 2026 Google Pixel update is available as you read this and you should be able to update to it immediately if you go looking in the right places. For most, that will mean an over-the-air update that’ll arrive without issue and get you setup for the next update to come. For those with a Pixel 10 series device, Google has issued a bit of a warning with special instructions.

On the factory images page for Pixel updates, Google added a note today to let owners of the Pixel 10, Pixel 10 Pro, Pixel 10 Pro XL, and Pixel 10 Pro Fold know that there is a situation they need to be aware of when applying the May 2026 update.

Google notes that this latest update increments the anti-rollback version of the bootloader and there could be an issue if you try to manually update later and run into issues:

Warning: The May 2026 update for Pixel 10, 10 Pro, 10 Pro XL and 10 Pro Fold devices contains a bootloader update that increments the anti-roll back version for the bootloader. This prevents the device from rolling back to previous vulnerable versions of the bootloader. After flashing the May 2026 update on these devices you won’t be able to flash and boot older Android 16 builds.

Breaking that down a bit, you may be aware of Android’s seamless updates. In the basic form, seamless updates are a way for Google to load bootable builds of Android in 2 separate slots (active and inactive) on your device. This lets an update install in the background, leaving your device available during that process, and then only requiring a quick reboot to switch over to the new build.

For most updates, you switch slots, moving a previous build to the inactive slot as a fallback build if something were to go wrong. Then, when a new update arrives, it takes the inactive slot and then you do another switch.

However, since this May 2026 update brings a new bootloader, that inactive slot with the older bootloader could become a problem. Should you try to flash the active slot with a build that fails to boot, the fallback or inactive slot would kick in and try to boot that build with the older bootloader. This would essentially leave your device in an unbootable state.

The fix? For the majority of you, I wouldn’t worry about any of this. This is a warning for those who might manually flash an update at some point and attempt to do so in the active slot. If the inactive slot remains on an older bootloader, then there would be a problem.

Here’s the recommendation:

To avoid hitting this state, if you are flashing an impacted Pixel device with the May 2026 update or newer for the first time, flash the bootloader partition to the inactive slot after successfully updating and booting into Android 16 May 2026 at least once. This can be done by following these steps:
After a successful boot into Android 16 May 2026 for the first time, sideload the full OTA image corresponding to that build and reboot the device to ensure that both slots have a bootable image.

In short, most of you don’t need to worry about a thing. Folks who tinker, maybe consider the instructions above.

And for those curious, Google issued a very similar warning last year to the Pixel 6 and 6 Pro, Pixel 6a, Pixel 8 and 8 Pro, and Pixel 8a.