Topic summary
GrapheneOS

GrapheneOS () is an open-sourcemobile operating systemfocused on security and privacy, available for Google Pixel and future Motorola devices, including smartphones, tablets, and foldables. It is built on the Android Open Source Project (AOSP) and was first released in 2016.
The project focuses on researching and improving the privacy and security of Android, primarily through defense in depth improvements and attack surface reduction. The hardening includes low-level system components, as well as improvements to application sandboxing and the permission model.
GrapheneOS is free and open-source. The system components are mostly published under permissive licenses, such as the MIT License or Apache License 2.0, with some components using the GNU GPL-2.0 license. GrapheneOS can be installed using a web installer or a traditional command-line-based installation environment. Due to its hardware security requirements, GrapheneOS is only officially supported on Google Pixel devices released between 2021 and 2025, but the project announced in 2026 that it plans to also certify selected devices from Motorola Mobility.
The nonprofit GrapheneOS Foundation was founded in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, by Daniel Micay, Dmytro Mukhomor, and Khalykbek Yelshibekov in March 2023. It received large contributions from donors such as Ethereum developer Vitalik Buterin and Twitter founder Jack Dorsey. As of April 2026, the operating system had approximately 400,000 active users.