this post was submitted on 02 Aug 2025
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GrapheneOS supports a phone model for as long as Google officially does. You can see the support lifetime of each model here: https://endoflife.date/pixel
If you want to keep an updated phone constantly, you'd have to upgrade every 7 years.
This link is also important.
https://grapheneos.org/faq#device-lifetime
Generally speaking, the answer is 7-15 years by combining these two sources.
There's nothing in that link to indicate 15 years. OEM support means Google's support, not graphene's. GrapheneOS does usually offer a few harm reduction releases beyond the official support timeline, but that's a few months of extra time, not years.
They offer several years of "extended support"
From the link:
Emphasis mine. That quote does not imply they will provide an additional 3 years of support, only that they will offer the harm reduction updates from the end of official OEM support until the next version of Android is released.
I have personal experience with this, as my quite old Pixel 4a received harm-reduction updates from GrapheneOS for an additional few months into 2024 until the next version of Android was released, but that did not result in years of support. It is now completely unsupported, and has a warning on every bootup that says as much.
Further along they then say:
This implies they may actually stop doing post-support harm reduction updates for the newer devices that have longer support lifetimes from Google.
As an owner of a 4a, I can tell you with confidence that my device has not received an update in any form for many, many months now. It is effectively unsupported, and certainly is insecure in comparison to a Pixel 6 or newer.
The GrapheneOS developers themselves have stated in their forum that they will no longer provide extended support beyond the Pixel 5a, and that the extended support it has is already effectively insecure:
A day ago, a GrapheneOS dev said of the Pixel 4a:
So for the Pixel 4, it effectively received about an extra year and half of tenuous support. The Pixel 5 will receive a few more months of tenuous extended support, then there will be no extended support for any future devices, meaning users will have to upgrade at the end of Google's official support cycle for each device.