How Often to Update a Chrome Extension: 805-Listing Data

Originally published on ExtensionBooster.

How often should you update a Chrome extension? Across 805 Chrome Web Store listings, the median one had gone 79 days without an update, and almost a quarter had not shipped anything in over a year. Here is what the numbers say about update cadence, ratings and a sensible maintenance schedule for your own extension.

The dataset in one paragraph

ExtensionBooster recorded the "Updated" date, user count and rating of 805 listings on October 17, 2026, gathered from 18 category pages, 60 searches and related-extension links. Rating comparisons only use the 734 listings with at least 10 ratings. The sample leans toward popular, well-rated extensions, so treat it as a benchmark for listings that already have traction.

Headline numbers:

• 36% were updated in the past 30 days.
• 23% had gone more than a year without an update.
• The median was 79 days since the last update.

Bigger extensions ship more often

User count tracks update frequency closely. The million-user tier updates roughly ten times more often than small listings.

Users	Listings	Median days since update	Updated in last 90 days	Untouched for 1+ year
Under 1,000	45	191	31%	27%
1,000 to 9,999	120	201	33%	37%
10,000 to 99,999	210	91	50%	26%
100,000 to 999,999	297	63	59%	19%
1,000,000+	133	18	70%	13%

The 1,000 to 9,999 band is the most neglected: more than a third of those listings had sat untouched for a year.

Stale listings rate lower

Among the 734 rated listings, freshness and rating move together:

Last updated	Listings	Median rating	Rated under 4 stars
Past 30 days	275	4.4	23%
31 to 90 days	129	4.3	27%
3 to 6 months	86	4.3	29%
6 to 12 months	87	4.1	40%
1 to 2 years	80	4.2	30%
Over 2 years	77	4.1	44%

The gap is clearest in the 10,000 to 1,000,000 user band. There, 22% of listings updated in the last 90 days rated under 4 stars, against 41% of listings untouched for over a year. Listings at 4.5 stars or higher had a median of 43 days since their last update; listings under 4 stars sat at 166 days.

This is correlation, not causation. Some stable tools stay well rated for years without a release. ColorZilla, for example, had 4,000,000 users and a 4.7 rating with a last update in May 2024.

Why might stale extensions slip? The original analysis points to a few likely reasons:

1. Chrome and the sites you inject into keep changing, so unmaintained code breaks.
2. Bug reports with no reply turn into 1-star reviews.
3. Google said in its August 20, 2026 update that the extension rating "will focus on more recent reviews", so fresh complaints weigh more, and so do fresh fixes.
4. An old "Updated" date makes new visitors hesitate.
5. Abandoned extensions attract buyers who may turn them into malware.

Check your own extension in 15 lines

Here is a small helper that compares your listing with the median for its size band and flags it once it passes 90 or 365 days:

const BANDS = [
  { below: 1_000, medianDays: 191 },
  { below: 10_000, medianDays: 201 },
  { below: 100_000, medianDays: 91 },
  { below: 1_000_000, medianDays: 63 },
  { below: Infinity, medianDays: 18 },
];

function updateFreshness(users, lastUpdated, now = new Date()) {
  const days = Math.floor((now - new Date(lastUpdated)) / 86_400_000);
  const { medianDays } = BANDS.find((b) => users < b.below);
  const status = days > 365 ? "stale" : days > 90 ? "aging" : "fresh";
  return { days, medianDays, status };
}

console.log(updateFreshness(25_000, "2026-05-02", new Date("2026-10-17")));
// { days: 168, medianDays: 91, status: 'aging' }

If your listing is "aging" and well past the median for its band, that is your cue to plan a maintenance release.

A practical update cadence

• Ship at least quarterly, and move to monthly once you pass 10,000 users.
• Test against Chrome Beta before each stable release reaches your users.
• Treat repeated bug reports as incidents: fix fast, then reply to the reviews that reported it.
• Skip empty releases. Bumping the version just to refresh the date adds nothing for users.
• Tell users what changed in your "what's new" text or a short note in the popup.

Updating does not raise your rating on its own. Google does not list update frequency as a ranking factor; updates help indirectly through fewer uninstalls and fewer negative reviews.

Key takeaways

• The median listing in the sample was 79 days past its last update; 23% had gone over a year.
• Extensions with 1M+ users had a median of 18 days since update, versus 201 days in the 1,000 to 9,999 band.
• In the 10K to 1M band, 41% of year-old listings rated under 4 stars, compared with 22% of recently updated ones.
• A quarterly release, monthly above 10K users, is a reasonable floor.
• Fix what reviewers report, then tell them you fixed it.

The full breakdown, including the FAQ and every caveat, is in the Chrome extension update cadence and ratings study. If ratings are the part you are working on, ExtensionBooster's tools for extension reviews and growth are worth a look.

How often do you ship updates to your extension, and have you seen your rating move after a long gap between releases?