GrapheneOS is ditching AOSP apps and building its own alternatives

The team behind GrapheneOS is shifting more resources toward the stock Android apps that still ship with the operating system. In a recent thread, the developers outlined plans to tackle several remaining AOSP applications that have fallen behind and bring the default software lineup closer to the standards expected from a modern operating system. The move marks a broader effort to give the project more control over the apps that come built into the OS.

For certain apps, the developers are choosing to start completely from scratch rather than trying to fix old code. The first major target is the stock AOSP Gallery, which GrapheneOS plans to initially develop as a fork of ReFra, a FOSS Android gallery app built with Jetpack Compose. The team has not yet decided whether the new Gallery will continue following the upstream project or eventually diverge from it entirely, saying it has enough resources to take either approach or even build a gallery completely from scratch. The AOSP Keyboard is also set to be replaced with a much better keyboard. The team also addressed suggestions to adopt alternatives such as FUTO Keyboard, explaining that its non-commercial license does not meet the project's requirements.

GrapheneOS has also prepared a secure paste feature that aims to fix a longstanding privacy issue with Android's clipboard system. Apps will still be able to write to the clipboard and read data they placed there themselves, but they won't be able to access clipboard content set by another app. This prevents apps from reading potentially sensitive clipboard data as soon as they become the focused app, a behavior the developers say can expose information to privacy-invasive apps. The feature will integrate with the standard selection toolbar, input methods, accessibility services and keyboard shortcuts. The team says this will effectively make clipboard-reading notifications obsolete, and the feature is planned to be merged soon.

Not every AOSP app is getting the same level of attention, however. GrapheneOS says the AOSP Files app will likely receive only limited improvements and is not a major priority for now, since its underlying file manager is still actively maintained within AOSP. Its neglected interface is largely due to Google not using the stock AOSP version as the user-facing file manager on Pixel devices. As a result, the app has received far less attention on the design front over the years.

While basic utilities like the file manager are taking a backseat, the operating system's communication tools are receiving the exact opposite treatment. The biggest upcoming release is a massive overhaul of the default Messaging app, which the team has spent months rebuilding using modern Android Compose code. As noted by the developers, this major messaging update is simply waiting for the urgent OS patch to deploy first. While modernizing the interface is the immediate priority, GrapheneOS eventually plans to build the application into an independent client featuring native RCS support and MLS end-to-end encryption. Addressing user questions on X, the developers clarified that they currently have no timeline for this upgrade. The team is still in the early planning phase and wants to overhaul the Messaging app much further before tackling the massive effort of adding RCS without relying on Google Mobile Services. Until that custom solution is built, users who rely on advanced communication features today can still run Google Messages safely through sandboxed Google Play.