You Can No Longer Downgrade To IOS 26.2 - 9to5Mac

You can no longer downgrade to iOS 26.2 – 9to5Mac

Last updated: 2026/02/02 at 10:18 PM

News Room Published 2 February 2026

Following last week’s release of iOS 26.2.1, Apple has now stopped signing iOS 26.2. Here’s what that means.

Apple also stops signing several versions of iOS 12, iOS 15, iOS 16, and iOS 18

Whenever Apple releases an iOS update with important security fixes, or decides a version is stable enough, it usually doesn’t take long before earlier versions stop being signed, effectively blocking downgrades.

As spotted by MacRumors, that’s precisely what happened today with iOS 26.2.

In practice, this means that if you’re running iOS 26.2.1, which was released just a week ago, you can no longer downgrade to iOS 26.2 (or any other previous version, for that matter).

Last week, when Apple rolled out iOS 26.2.1, the system’s release notes mentioned only that the update “provide[d] support for AirTag (2nd generation) along with bug fixes,” but no specific security fixes or CVEs, which are public identifiers used to track known security vulnerabilities, were listed.

In addition to iOS 26.2, Apple reportedly also stopped signing iOS 12.5.7, iOS 15.8.5, iOS 16.7.12, and iOS 18.7.3, following recent rollouts of iOS 12.5.8, iOS 15.8.6, iOS 16.7.14, and iOS 18.7.4.