Can your phone be degoogled?

How the checker works

The checker asks two questions: who made your phone, and which model it is. Pick the brand first, then the model family. The answer appears right away, and the lookup runs in your browser from a list built into this page. There’s no account, no email and no form to submit. The checker is free, and it stays free.

If you don’t know your exact model, open Settings → About phone. The model name and number are listed there. Write the number down, because it matters later. Two phones with the same marketing name can have different bootloader rules depending on the country or carrier they were sold for.

What your result means

Every result starts with a label:

• Fully supported: at least one well-maintained private OS ships official builds for this model. Most Pixels, recent Fairphones and the budget moto g models CalyxOS supports land here.
• Community supported: the bootloader can be unlocked and an OS project supports the phone, but expect a real flashing project, or check your exact variant first.
• No OS yet: the bootloader unlocks, but no official degoogled OS has builds for the model yet. As of September 2026 that’s the case for the Nothing Phone 3 and 3a.
• OS swap not possible: the bootloader is permanently locked, as on US Samsung phones and iPhones. You can’t replace the operating system, but you can still remove most of the tracking.
• Private out of the box and Linux phone: phones that ship with a private OS already installed, such as the Jolla C2, Volla phones or the Librem 5.

Under the label you’ll see every system your phone can run, each with our privacy score out of 10, an install difficulty (Easy, Moderate or Advanced) and a button to that project’s official install page. Below that is a short step-by-step plan for your situation.

Where the data comes from

The answers come from our device database: 36 model families across 15 brands, plus a “not sure of my model” option. Each entry was checked against the official support lists of GrapheneOS, CalyxOS, LineageOS, /e/OS, iodéOS, Ubuntu Touch and Sailfish OS. The last deep check was on September 20, 2026, and we re-check every quarter.

Device lists change between our checks. Before you unlock or flash anything, open the OS project’s own device page and confirm your exact model number is on it. If you’d rather scan everything at once, the same data is laid out as one page of every phone and its systems.

Before you flash anything

1. Back up your photos, messages and two-factor codes. Unlocking the bootloader erases the phone.
2. Check that your phone is an unlocked or international version. Carrier-sold phones, including some carrier Pixels, often can’t unlock the bootloader at all.
3. Charge the battery and use a good USB cable.
4. Read the official guide for the OS you picked from start to finish before you begin.

For a Pixel, the browser-based GrapheneOS install walkthrough covers the whole process.

If your phone can’t be degoogled

A locked phone can still be cleaned up a lot. The plan the checker shows covers it: skip or remove the Google account where you can, disable Google apps you don’t need, set Private DNS to a tracker-blocking resolver, install private apps and turn off ad personalization. Our step-by-step plan for locked phones goes deeper, and removing bloatware without root takes care of preinstalled apps you can’t uninstall from the settings.

Checking an iPhone? iOS can’t be replaced. The checker suggests looking at trade-in value instead, because a recent iPhone covers most of the price of a Pixel 9a.

Words you’ll see in the results

• Bootloader: the small program that starts your phone and decides which operating system it may load. Unlocking it lets you install a different OS.
• Verified boot: a check at every startup that the operating system hasn’t been modified. GrapheneOS has you relock the bootloader after installing, so this protection keeps working.
• microG: a free, open-source stand-in for Google Play services. CalyxOS, /e/OS and iodéOS use it so apps that expect Google can still get notifications and location.
• Sandboxed Google Play: GrapheneOS’s optional way to run the real Play apps as ordinary apps, with no special system access.

Common questions

Can I go back to normal Android later? Usually yes. Pixels can be restored to factory Android with Google’s official Android Flash Tool. For other brands, follow the restore instructions from the OS project or the phone maker.

What if my phone isn’t listed? Choose “Other / not sure”. LineageOS supports hundreds of devices and /e/OS lists 287, so search their device lists for your model.

Which system should I pick if I get several options? Start with the one marked with an easy installer. To weigh them in detail, see how the five Android-based systems differ and the scoring behind each number.