Google retired the Mobile-Friendly Test, the Mobile Usability report and its API on 1 December 2023, and pointed everyone at Lighthouse. Lighthouse does not check the thing people used it for most.
If you came here after clicking an old Mobile-Friendly Test link and landing somewhere unhelpful: yes, it is retired. Google's recommended replacement is Lighthouse, which is a genuinely better tool for performance, accessibility and SEO. It is not a replacement for the specific check most people ran.
Lighthouse's own documentation used to say it plainly: take the Mobile-Friendly Test to check for audits not covered by Lighthouse, such as sizing tap targets appropriately. The tool it pointed to no longer exists. Tap target sizing has effectively been homeless since the end of 2023.
| Check | Mobile-Friendly Test | Lighthouse today |
|---|---|---|
| Viewport meta configured | Yes | Yes |
| Text too small to read | Yes | Partial |
| Content wider than screen | Yes | Partial |
| Tap targets sized and spaced | Yes | No |
| Checks several viewports | No | No |
Two numbers, from the platform guidelines rather than from Google:
In practice, 44px is the number most teams adopt, plus at least 8px of clear space between adjacent targets so a thumb cannot hit both.
/* keeps a small icon looking small, but tappable */
.icon-button {
position: relative;
min-height: 44px;
min-width: 44px;
}Free, adds real-user field data from the Chrome UX Report alongside lab results. Best available answer for performance and for whether real visitors are struggling. Does not check tap targets.
Free, local, thorough on accessibility, SEO and best practices. Runs one viewport at a time. Does not check tap targets.
The Mobile Usability report went away with the test. Page Experience signals remain, but you no longer get a per-page mobile usability list.
Open device mode, measure controls with the element inspector, repeat per breakpoint. Reliable and slow.
Being straight about it
For load performance and Core Web Vitals, use PageSpeed Insights - it has real-user data that no browser extension can replicate. The gap worth filling is narrower than the old tool: tap target sizing and spacing, small text, overflow and breakpoint coverage, measured across several viewports at once instead of one.
Google retired the Mobile-Friendly Test tool, its API and the Search Console Mobile Usability report on 1 December 2023, having announced the change earlier that year. The test URL now redirects to Lighthouse and the API no longer returns results.
Yes. Google was explicit that retiring the tooling did not mean mobile usability stopped mattering; it remains part of page experience guidance. What went away was the diagnostic report, not the expectation.
No. Lighthouse historically pointed users at the Mobile-Friendly Test precisely for audits it did not cover, naming tap target sizing as an example. That tool is now retired, so the check is not available in Google's current tooling.
Apple's guidelines say 44 by 44 points minimum, Material Design says 48 by 48dp, and WCAG 2.2 sets an absolute floor of 24 by 24 CSS pixels. Most teams standardise on 44px with at least 8px of spacing between adjacent targets.
Yes - open device mode, inspect each interactive element and read its computed box size. It is entirely doable and entirely tedious, which is why it tends not to get done on every release.
The checks the Mobile-Friendly Test used to run - tap target size and spacing, small text, content wider than the screen - across every viewport at once, with the CSS fix for each.
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