GrapheneOS ships a ground-up rewrite of its Messages app

GrapheneOS, the security- and privacy-hardened Android distribution, has published a from-scratch rewrite of its Messages (SMS/MMS) app, tagged as release 13 on GitHub. The rewrite replaces the older codebase the project had been carrying rather than layering changes on top of it, consolidating messaging into an app the team fully controls and maintains.

The move fits GrapheneOS’s broader pattern of replacing inherited AOSP and third-party components with its own auditable, minimal-dependency implementations. Owning the code end to end lets the project apply its usual hardening posture, ship fixes on its own schedule, and avoid pulling in Google-tied services—consistent with a platform built for users who want a de-Googled, attack-surface-conscious phone.

The announcement itself is a GitHub release rather than a detailed writeup, so specifics on new features and behavioral changes are limited to what appears in the release notes and commit history. For GrapheneOS users, the practical takeaway is a maintained, open-source default messaging app that the project now steers directly.