If you keep an old Android phone in a drawer for a parent, a helper, or a child, it is about to go quiet. From 8 September 2026, WhatsApp will stop working on Android phones running a version older than 6.0, and in Malaysia, where the app is close to universal, more of those phones are still in daily use than most people would guess.
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Dinesh Raj chevron_right
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What is changing
WhatsApp has confirmed it will end support for Android versions below 6.0, the 2015 release known as Marshmallow, from 8 September 2026. The change was first spotted by WABetaInfo, later detailed by TechRepublic, and it is set out on WhatsApp's own supported devices page. After that date, a phone stuck on Android 5.0 or 5.1, the Lollipop releases from around 2014 and 2015, will no longer be able to send or receive messages.
One detail matters more than the deadline itself. This is about the software version, not how old or how cheap the phone looks. A handset that shipped with Android 5 but later received an official update to 6.0 or higher will keep working normally. The quickest way to know where you stand is to open Settings, tap About phone, and read the Android version line.
Why Malaysia feels this more than most
Few countries lean on a single app the way Malaysia leans on WhatsApp. Per DataReportal's Digital 2026 Malaysia report, 90.7 percent of internet users aged 16 to 64 open WhatsApp every month, and it holds around 80 percent of the instant messaging market, far ahead of Messenger and Telegram. It is how families coordinate, how small traders take orders, and how schools reach parents, which is also why lingering questions about how private those chats really are land so hard here.
That reliance is exactly why a cutoff bites. The phones most likely to still be running Lollipop are not the ones tech-savvy readers carry. They are the hand-me-downs: the spare phone a grandparent keeps only for family chat, the first phone bought cheap for a child, the backup handset kept for a second number. Those owners are the least likely to notice an in-app warning and the most likely to be cut off without understanding why.
What to do before 8 September
WhatsApp has started showing in-app alerts to affected users, and its advice comes down to three moves: update the phone to a newer Android version if one is offered, back up chats to Google Drive or local storage so nothing is lost, and switch to a supported device where no update exists. On hardware this old, a system update usually is not possible, so for many the honest answer will be a newer phone.
The timing is at least gentler than it could be. Entry-level Android phones now ship with a current operating system, and the mid-range has become genuinely affordable, though buyers should know that phone prices have been creeping up on a global memory shortage. For anyone who depends on a Lollipop phone for daily WhatsApp, the move is worth making before the deadline, not after the app has already gone silent.
Check the Android version on every phone in the house that still runs WhatsApp, not only your own. The ones at risk usually belong to the people who would find it hardest to fix on their own.
Images courtesy of freestocks and YouVersion on Unsplash.
