If you wrapped your Lovable app with Capacitor in the last year, it's almost certainly on Capacitor 7, and Capacitor 7 targets Android API 35. Since August 31, 2026, Google Play only accepts new apps and app updates that target Android 16, API 36. Your app stays in the store. You just can't ship a bug fix until you move. Google lets you request an extension, and that extension ends November 1, 2026.

So the Capacitor 8 upgrade isn't optional, and we've done a run of them for Lovable apps lately. The actual upgrade is mostly one command. What eats the afternoon is everything around it.

Fix your machine before you touch the project

Capacitor 8 wants newer tools than most people have installed, and npx cap migrate doesn't check most of them for you. From the official update guide:

Node 22 or newer

Xcode 26.0+ for iOS, and the iOS deployment target goes up to 15.0

Android Studio Otter (2025.2.1) or newer

JDK 21. The migrate command prints "Capacitor 8 requires JDK 21 or higher.…