I De-Googled the Pixel Fold: GrapheneOS in 2026

After moving to Linux, I've decided it's time to give Graphine OS another shot. What is Graphine OS? Well, it's a privacy and security focused mobile OS with Android app compatibility, and it's an open- source project. I'll show you how to install Graphine, as well as uninstall it, and give you my overall thoughts. I've used Graphine a handful of times over the years, but this time, I want to give it a shot on another device instead of the normal boring slabs. I want to try on the Google Pixel Fold, the original Google Pixel Fold. And this one is actually still sealed in the box. Yes, that's right. still sealed in the box. This is a brand new Google Pixel Fold. I actually picked this up for under $500. You can find these between $300 and $500. And it's an absolute steal at that price point. Unboxing it, I'm immediately greeted with that device, and you do get, you know, typical kind of accessories in the box. But nonetheless, toss those aside. The device is what we're here for. Right out of the box, this thing feels absolutely solid and premium. I really have to hand it to Google. They did a phenomenal job on the hardware of the original Pixel Fold. This passport book style foldable form factor is still my favorite even here in 2026. And I hope to see more brands bring back this style foldable because this is the perfect ideal foldable to me personally at least. I think it works the best. Let me know in the comments if there's other foldables you enjoy more, but I think Google really nailed it here with the original Google Pixel Fold. Booting this up for the first time. I do want to note that I did have to charge this for a bit right out of the box. So, off camera, I gave it about 16% battery just so that way I could dive right into this video, but as a heads up, if you do pick one of these up and it's not turning on right out of the box, don't panic right away. Just throw it on the charger for a little while and come back to it and you should be able to power it up at that point. It is pretty wild holding this again here in 2026. There's a lot of bezels there, of course, with that original fold, but it still looks great. It still feels solid in the hand and I think many people even now would be very happy with this device, especially at that price point that I mentioned. Now that we have it all booted up though, I'm going to skip through all the initial prompts. You can still see there I don't have a lot of battery. So while I do this, I am going to plug it in for a bit. I'll have to disconnect this and plug it back in when we get into the install. But just as a heads up, I am plugging it in just for some battery top off right now. Go ahead, like I said, and skip through all the prompts here. There will be quite a few prompts at the beginning to just fly right through. This is still probably running the original software that it shipped with, considering this was still sealed in the box. So, if this looks different than maybe your fully up-to-date Pixel, that's why. But, I'm going to go ahead and set this up with Graphine OS right out of the box. So, there's no need for me to go through and set this up. As you can see, now I'm on the home screen. And I'll open up the foldable here so you can get another view here of all the Google apps which we're going to swiftly remove all the Google as we deele this device shortly with graphine OS. All right. So, one of the first things we're going to want to do is navigate to settings. Once you're in settings, we're going to scroll all the way down and you're going to go to the uh about phone section. Once you get to the about phone section, you'll scroll all the way down and you'll look at the build and you're going to want to tap that multiple times here. So tap through it about seven times and you're now a developer. Congratulations. With developer options now available, we're going to navigate to system and then we're going to select developer options and enable OEM debugging. This is a critical part to the process, so make sure you do that. I'm then going to unplug the device so I can put it into fast boot mode. You do this by simultaneously holding the volume down button as well as the power button. As you hold those down, it will enter fast boot mode. pretty uh swiftly here as you can see. Again, this is a very critical step, so make sure that you're in fast boot mode. You don't need to select anything at this point, but I will use my USBC cable to connect it to my PC at this point. So, that way I'm connected and ready to go. And now that I'm connected to my PC, I will navigate to the web installer. The web installer is a very easy and intuitive way to install graphine OS. It gives you all of the prerequisites. Uh, for example, I'm using Linux Mint22. It'll also mention that you need a Chromiumbased browser in order to use this installer. I'm using Brave browser, which is Chromium base, so no issues there. And then as you scroll down, there is a mention about a specific command to run in your terminal if you're using a Linux distribution. I have encountered this issue with the fast boot protocol. So, I'm going to quickly and swiftly run this command. You might not need this again if you're not running on Linux like I am. Maybe you're using Windows for example. You might not need to run this command, but for me, I am using Linux and I'm going to run it just to be safe. Now, we'll go ahead and start with well unlocking the bootloader. So, you'll select unlock bootloader. I did have an error here. I just had to replplug my device in so it woke up. Then on the device, you'll be prompted to unlock the bootloader. As you follow these prompts, you'll see it is a very straightforward process. It'll tell you everything you need to do as you're walking through this. You'll then obtain the factory image by downloading the release. Make sure you stay on this screen until it fully downloads, ensuring that it has truly downloaded and has completed. Once it has completed, you can then flash the factory image by selecting flash release. You'll notice that your device will restart a few times. Just let it do its thing. There's nothing you need to do at this point until that the factory image has fully been flashed and installed on your device. Once that's occurred, you'll want to lock the bootloadader again. So, you'll select lock bootloader and then on the device, you'll be prompted to lock the bootloader. Again, all of this is very straightforward and it's a pretty smooth and fast process overall. Once you select lock bootloader, it does take a little bit so I did skip ahead, but anyways, you will see that that has successfully completed. There are some postinstallation notes about booting up your device, which we'll do here shortly, and then disabling OEM unlocking again, verifying the installation, and verifying the boot key hash, which will also show for each of the devices. So, the Pixel fold here, I will verify and validate that here in a second once the device boots up. So, again, we're good to boot the device. Go ahead and select start. Once you select start, the device is going to boot up for the first time into Graphine OS. And then you can see I can verify that key hash right there on the display which I have now verified and the device is powering up for the first time. Once it boots up for the first time again your device has been wiped. So we'll have to walk through all of the prompts again. But now we're in Graphine OS. So welcome to Graphine OS on the Google Pixel fold. I'll go ahead and connect to Wi-Fi and step through each of the initial setup prompts. I'll set up the time and date for now just so that way I have a note of the time as I'm stepping through this. It's now 1:45 p.m. Go ahead and select that. Uh, I'll leave location services on for now. Would recommend for most security-minded to disable that, of course. Set up a PIN and then set up the fingerprint unlock. I really like the fingerprint unlock on this device. It's pretty smooth, easy to use, and works pretty consistently all of the time. I'll continue to jump through the prompts here, but I do want to note that I do want to install the Sandbox Google Play Store. I'll also walk through that process so you can see how to install that yourself. So that way I can install a lot of the apps that I use daily and still run them on the Google Pixel fold. Graphine OS replaces the standard just in time compilation with ahead of time processing within the Android runtime while stock Android installs apps quickly by compiling code during use. Graphine OS fully compiles the entire application into a executable format at the moment of installation. So to translate, expect slower app installs from a sandbox Google Play Store as a heads up. To make this a little easier for the video, I'm going to use screen copy from my terminal in my Linux Mint desktop environment connected to that Pixel Fold so that way you can see as I walk through this process just how easy this is. Not only that, you get a good view here versus me just filming the device. Hopefully I'll use the folded uh unfolded version of this actually. So that way it opens it up a bit and hopefully is a little bit more clear for you as I'm stepping through this. Anyways, you'll want to select apps and then you'll scroll down and you'll want to select Google Play Store. When you select to install Google Play Store, it is going to have a few prerequisites including the Google Play Services to ensure that it can install the Google Play Store. This is a sandboxed version of the Google Play Store. So essentially it is setting this up in a sandboxed environment and when you install your apps those are equally sandboxed from the Google Play Store. Again keeping everything secure. The nice thing with using screen copy as well is I can quickly use my keyboard on my desktop to type in my username and password versus doing that on the device. So just a note there. If you're looking for an easier process, use screen copy and mirror it to your desktop. I also have a uh NS NFC verification key that I need to use to uh sign in via the two-factor authentication. I'll go ahead and skip through the prompts so that way I am now in the Google Play Store. So you'll see Google Play Services and the Google Play Store is now available on my Google Pixel fold running Graphine OS. I'll also install Android Auto real quick. And then I will make a note here just to show you that once you do install that, you can install Google Play Messages. That way once you have your SIM, of course, you can then use RCS. So RCS does work with the Google Messages app, but you have to install the Google Messages app once you install the sandboxed Google Play Store. So just a heads up there. And then if I had my SIM in right now, it would work. I'll set up my SIM later using eSIM since this device does support eSIM. With all of that out of the way though, I'm going to go ahead and install all of my apps and we'll be right back. Just like that, I have all of my apps set up here on the Google Pixel Fold with Graphine OS. And while the setup took a little bit of time because like I said, it does take a little bit longer to download and install the apps of your choosing from that sandboxed Google Play environment, once it's installed, it feels like using the Pixel Fold just as a normal Pixel Fold. Everything works very fast, very fluid. All of the apps that I use are working perfectly. I haven't had any issues even with a lot of my banking apps, etc. Everything works great through Graphine OS. So, if you're looking at graphine OS as an option, I will say it works excellent here on the Google Pixel Fold. Of course, if you install it and then find that graphine OS is not for you, you can uninstall it by using the Android flash tool that Google provides. You'll be prompted with initial dialogue to enable pop-ups. Once I enable pop-ups in my Brave browser, I can then go ahead and skip to allowing the ADB access and I can start using the Android flash tool. on your device. You'll want to make sure that you've enabled USB debugging and OEM unlocking. Once you've done that, you can then plug in your device and then you'll select your device. And once you've selected your device, it will automatically determine the build and factory image for your device like my Pixel Fold here. You might need to authenticate and just hit accept on your device as well, like I did here. Once you select connect, it will then prompt you to install the actual build. You'll then select install build and then from there you can continue with the prompts from the flash tool. It's a very straightforward process overall and it will continue to walk you through that straightforward process. It'll take a bit to process your device. Then you'll have to reselect your device. As you can see here that I've been prompted to do so. Go ahead and reselect your device here. I'll select this and then I will select my Pixel Fold again. Once I've done that, it will proceed. And now you can unlock the bootloader. So unlock the bootloader on your device again using the volume keys and then select unlock bootloader. Now that I've done that, it'll move on to the next step here. The software will now download. It will take a bit. So I'm going to fast forward and jump around a bit here. So that way we can get right through this process. Once it's downloaded, it then installs and flashes the software. So once the software is starting to flash, go ahead and make sure you sit back and let this process occur. Don't unplug the device. Don't disconnect anything. Don't let your computer fall asleep. You don't want any hiccups in this process. Once the installation though is complete, you'll be prompted to lock the device. You'll want to then lock the device on the actual device. So we'll go ahead and do that using the volume keys again. Select lock device. You can select done. And well, it's completed. It is now uninstalled. We have successfully uninstalled graphine OS and installed the latest factory image to the Google Pixel fold and we're right back into the world of Google coming from that deled experience. I'll skip through all of the prompts here, but as you can see, we're back on the standard out of the box Google Pixel fold. Over the years, I've often experimented with Graphin OS. If you're good staying on the same hardware for a while, especially Pixels, and you want an added layer of security not found with stock Android, then definitely check it out. I often found it didn't fit into my workflow, especially since I enjoy swapping hardware often. But as slaps continue to be more of the same, installing on a foldable like the OG Pixel Fold here, really makes for a unique experience that I enjoy. While most of my apps are sandboxed, the added layer of security is comforting. And as the graphine team will often say, graphine isn't for everyone, and most will be like me, sandboxing Google Play Services. But it does offer better security than not using graphine at all. Of course, let me know in the comments down below. Are you using graphine OS? If so, which device are you running it on by chance? I look forward to the discussion. As always, thank you for watching. Take care and stay

I'm transforming the original Pixel Fold into the ultimate privacy device! I'll cover the full GrapheneOS installation, how to revert to stock Android, and give my thoughts on the de-Googled foldable experience in 2026. 📖CHAPTERS📖 00:00 Intro 00:24 Unboxing 02:00 Install GrapheneOS 06:42 Graphene // Sandboxed Google Play 10:47 Uninstall GrapheneOS 13:16 Final Thoughts GrapheneOS https://grapheneos.org Android Flash Tool https://flash.android.com/welcome Subscribe ▶ https://lipps.ai #pixelfold #grapheneOS #degoogle #secure #privacy #android #drewlipps