Companion resources
The living companion to Take Back Your Phone. Everything here changes too fast to print, so it lives here instead — kept up to date after the book cannot be.
The companion sheets
Five printable sheets from the book, plus a cover page — six pages in total. Free, no signup needed.
Download the companion sheets (PDF)The current app list
The book teaches you what to look for in each category, not a fixed list of apps — apps get abandoned, forked and acquired, and a printed list would go stale within a year. This is the current picks, kept current here instead.
Last checked: August 2026
| Need | Current pick | Where to get it |
|---|---|---|
| Password manager | Bitwarden or Proton Pass | Obtainium / Accrescent |
| Authenticator | Aegis or Ente Auth | Obtainium / F-Droid |
| Messaging | Signal (or Molly, a hardened Signal fork) | Obtainium |
| Proton Mail, Tuta, or K-9 Mail / Thunderbird | Obtainium / Accrescent | |
| Maps | Organic Maps or OsmAnd | Obtainium / F-Droid |
| Contacts & calendar | Fossify Contacts / Calendar, plus DAVx5 for sync | F-Droid |
| Keyboard | HeliBoard or FUTO Keyboard | F-Droid / Obtainium |
| File manager | Material Files or Fossify File Manager | F-Droid |
| Gallery | Fossify Gallery or Aves | F-Droid |
| Notes | Standard Notes, Obsidian, or Fossify Notes | Obtainium / F-Droid |
| Podcasts | AntennaPod | F-Droid |
| Music | Musicolet or Vinyl | F-Droid |
| YouTube | NewPipe | Obtainium |
| RSS | Feeder or ReadYou | F-Droid |
| Documents | Collabora Office or ONLYOFFICE | F-Droid / Play |
| VPN | Mullvad, Proton VPN, or IVPN | Obtainium |
Obtainium and F-Droid are open-source app stores that install directly from each project's own source, without a Google account. Accrescent is a security-focused app store built for GrapheneOS specifically. All three are covered in the book.
Banking app compatibility
Most banking apps work fine. A small number check whether your phone is running Google-certified software and refuse to open if it is not. This varies by bank and changes constantly in both directions, so a definitive list here would mislead you the day it was published.
The most reliable way to check is to search for your own bank on discuss.grapheneos.org — other GrapheneOS users report what currently works there, and it is updated far more often than any page we could maintain.
See also what doesn't work for tap-to-pay and other known limitations.
Get told when this page changes
Optional — the sheets above are free either way. Leave your email if you would like a note when the app list or banking notes are updated.