Google Play Store does not downgrade the target SDK version in my updated application

Question

I have an application on the Google Play store with target SDK version 23. Now I have updated my application and for some reason I set my target SDK version to 20 and Google Play Store does not allow me to downgrade the target SDK version.

What can I do so that the Google Play Store allows my application with the downgraded target SDK version. The actual error follows:

It is forbidden to downgrade devices which previously used M permissions (target SDK 23 and above) to APKs which use old style permissions (target SDK 22 and below). This occurs in the change from version 42 (target SDK 23) to version 43 (target SDK 20).

Answer 1

TLDR: You can't do anything about it.

You have two (one) options:

• Build your app again and keep targeting the same SDK version, in your case android M (SDK 23);
• Publish a completely new application with a new application ID. This is an option in the worst case scenario, but I cannot imagine that you would ever want to do this;

You might wonder why you can't downgrade the target SDK version from 23+ to something lower. Google probably won't allow you to do this because users with the previous version (target SDK 23+) of your app might have disallowed some specific permissions which they are forced to allow as soon as they update the app (target SDK < 23). I personally think, seen from a user experience perspective, its weird to allow dynamic permissions at first but then retract them and force users to allow all permissions.