You are leaving your comfort zone for something new and that’s difficult for everybody, so kudos. Consequently my only advice is to take time to learn how it works and accept limitations.

Understand that RCS is very hit or miss right now. I believe all alternate OS’s are having a problem figuring it out. Some people are using it with no problem and other people can’t get it to work. There is a looong RCS thread in the GrapheneOS forum.

Community is great. There are many very knowledgeable people there.

https://discuss.grapheneos.org/

I have separate profiles:

• main user has no Google Play services or Gapps: just F-Droid apps and a couple of play store apps I use daily (anonymously via Aurora Store app)
• Aurora profile has other playstore apps that will run without Google Play Services
• PlayStore profile is for anything that requires full Google Play Services (banking, purchased apps)
• Work profile is full-on Google everyting (Google school)

• Location is on, but only shared with Organic Maps, FindMyDevice (FMD) and Transit.app
• USB port is power-only (no data).

Some compromises I’ve made:

• I have fingerprint unlock enabled (but not on my password vault or PlayStore/Banking profile)
• I tap-to-pay with a Garmin watch ( you only need the Garmin app to set-up the credit card, then it can be deleted )

But… I think starting-out, don’t worry about it. If you load all the same apps as on your old phone, into a single main profile, it’ll still be a huge improvement.

Installing it works best with standard vanilla Chromium. If you have issues, it may be because you don’t have ADB or the Android SDK installed on your computer. Just follow the directions, and it will run itself. Its simplicity is honestly a thing of beauty. And if you fuck up, you can (almost) always flash it back to stock Android with Google’s own WebUSB application.

After that? Getting a launcher that can install custom icons was a priority for me personally. I’ve heard awesome things about Lawnchair, but Pear Launcher is nice too. Aurora Store is a must if you don’t want the Play Store but still want play store apps (disclosure: It undermines some of the important security features of your phone’s setup to do this, and the GOS devs themselves strongly condemn the practice. F-droid and Obtainium are, imho, the better solution for most things. But also, bank apps and Discord are essential for me.) Shelter from F-Droid is an excellent tool that lets you set up certain apps in a work profile, which makes toggling certain apps on and off very easy so it uses even less bandwidth and battery power.

For apps, I recommend the following replacements:

• Play Store -> Accrescent and F-Droid

• Images -> Aves Libre

• Maps -> CoMaps, Organic Maps, or OsmAND

• Google Translate -> SimplyTranslate

• Weather -> BreezyWeather

• YouTube -> PipePipe or Clipious

• Keyboard -> HeliBoard

• Stock utility apps -> Fossify from F-Droid

Beyond that, just enjoy it. It’s so simple and so quiet. I mean mentally quiet. So few pop-ups, so little fuss, it’s remarkably pleasant.

Congrats! I made the switch a few months ago and haven’t looked back. Highly recommend everyone switch to GrapheneOS, even if you still use Google Play Services or other Google apps (obviously trying to get away from those is always the right move but it isn’t that simple for most people)

Now just wish Google Pay or some other contactless payment could work with it…

Try Curve if you want to pay with your phone. You can’t sign up for N26 on GrapheneOS, but Revolut works pretty well.

As someone who messed with a lot of custom ROMs for Android in the past, I can definitely say that installing Graphene is a breeze by comparison. The one thing to note is that their web installer can’t use Firefox (at least the last time I checked), but other than that the experience has been solid. 👍

Do NOT!! use sandboxed GMS & play store, if you need something proprietary, use aptoide or apkmirror, if you’re extremely desperate, use aurora store