Android Marshmallow

Android Marshmallow (codenamed Android M during development) is the sixth major version of the Android operating system developed by Google, being the successor to Android Lollipop. It was announced at Google I/O on May 28, 2015, and released the same day as a beta, before being officially released on September 29, 2015. It was succeeded by Android Nougat on August 22, 2016. Android Marshmallow primarily focuses on improving the overall user experience of its predecessor. It introduced a new opt-in permissions architecture, new APIs for contextual assistants (first used by a new feature "Now on Tap" to provide context-sensitive search results), a new power management system that reduces background activity when a device is not being physically handled, native support for fingerprint recognition and USB-C connectors, the ability to migrate data and applications to a microSD card, and other internal changes. Android Marshmallow saw low adoption, with 13.3% of Android devices running it by July 2016. Usage of Android Marshmallow steadily increased since then, and by August 2017, 35.21% of Android devices ran Marshmallow, before receding. As of January 2026, 1.62% of Android devices ran Marshmallow. Security updates for Android Marshmallow ended in August 2018. On 30 July 2026, Google Play Services support for Android Marshmallow was dropped.