Features

DiamaneOS additions

Features DiamaneOS adds on top of GrapheneOS.

• Moments switch

  On phones with a side switch, the switch runs one action you pick: Moments (only chosen apps on Home, Do Not Disturb on), Camera and microphone off, Silent, Airplane mode or Lockdown.

• Camera and microphone off

  With this switch action, the kernel keeps the built-in cameras and microphones blocked while the switch is down, and Android cannot lift the block. The kernel block starts with the first restart after you choose the action. It is not a hardware kill switch.

• Home search

  Finds apps, shortcuts, settings and quick answers on the phone, and sends nothing. It keeps no history. An optional Suggestions row counts what you open from Home; the counts stay on the phone, and you can hide items or clear them.

• Keyboard privacy

  Your dictionary and learned words stay in storage your passphrase unlocks, and old copies are deleted. It never learns from incognito or password fields and has no network access.

• eSIM manager

  Download eSIMs with a carrier’s QR code or activation code, and turn on, turn off, rename or delete eSIM profiles. Off until you turn on eSIM support. It connects only to the eSIM server you confirm, and reads QR codes through the camera app, so it has no camera access.

• Encrypted microSD storage

  A microSD card can be set up as phone storage. It is then encrypted, checked before every use, and nothing on it can run. Apps stay on the phone’s own storage. Forgetting the card destroys its key.

• Call volume in 15 steps

  Call volume has 15 steps, like media volume, instead of 5.

• Firmware release in Settings

  About phone shows which device firmware release the phone runs.

• Tap to wake

  On phones whose touch screen supports it, a single tap can wake the screen as well as a double tap. Taps are ignored while the proximity sensor is covered, such as in a pocket.

• Hotspot devices

  The hotspot page lists the devices connected right now, with the name each one gives. A notification can tell you when a device joins. Nothing about them is stored.

• Brightness measured on the panel

  The brightness slider follows measurements of the phone’s own panel: even steps from 2 nits, with colours and gamma that stay correct up to the top. The brightest band is kept for sunlight with adaptive brightness on.

• Clock app

  Other apps cannot silence a ringing alarm, an expired timer cannot unlock the lock screen, and Clock data stays out of device-to-device transfers. The app has fewer entry points and permissions.

Privacy

• Private content stays hidden over the lock screen

  During a call or a ringing alarm on a locked phone, status bar chips and notification icons no longer show other apps’ private content, such as a contact’s photo.

• Sensors permission covers vendor sensors

  Sensors added by the device maker need the Sensors permission too. Before, an app could read the phone’s colour sensor with the permission off.

• Clearer privacy indicators

  Location gets its own indicator, the camera lens lights up while the front camera is in use, and the lock screen says which sensor is in use. Camera or microphone use that starts during a location indicator now shows.

• Less location data in logs

  The radio log shows your serving cell only as a hash, and the GPS engine logs only warnings.

• Hardware serial numbers hidden

  The chip’s and the storage’s serial numbers are readable by root only. The camera’s log, which records the camera modules’ serial numbers, is silenced.

• Fewer identifiers in bug reports

  Bug reports no longer copy a hardware identifier from the boot settings, and the closed Bluetooth code no longer logs the Bluetooth address.

• Factory Bluetooth address

  Bluetooth uses the phone’s factory address instead of a generated one whose fixed start would mark the phone as running DiamaneOS.

• No wake-on-LAN

  Other devices on the network cannot wake the phone.

• Gallery without network access

  The gallery app cannot reach the network: it opens only images and videos on the phone.

• No vendor connections

  Network captures overnight, during normal use and during a GPS fix showed no connections from the phone’s own software to the chip maker, the device maker or Google. Checked again after every vendor firmware update; last checked on 2026-10-09 with vendor firmware 16.111.0 (security patch level 2026-09-05).

• Modem files cleared by a factory reset

  Files the modem writes now live in normal storage, so a factory reset deletes them.

Screen lock

If the phone’s secure area were broken and the storage copied, only the lock would protect the data. See the known limitations.

• Passphrase first

  Setup recommends a generated passphrase: six words by default, from the EFF word list. A PIN stays possible after you explicitly accept a risk screen in plain language. A long generated PIN counts as strong.

• Help to learn the passphrase

  For the first two weeks the phone asks for a new passphrase once a day, and the lock screen says that it is practice and how many days remain.

• Costly lock guesses

  Each guess of a PIN or password costs 256 MiB of memory and about a second on the phone. Android, relying on a secure element, uses about half a megabyte. Fingerprint unlocks are not slowed. Applies once a lock is set or changed.

• No lock data on unencrypted storage

  Android keeps a copy of the lock’s check data on an unencrypted partition, for factory-reset protection. DiamaneOS does not use that protection and no longer writes the copy.

Security

• SELinux locked enforcing

  SELinux enforcing turns on early in start-up, and the kernel then locks it: nothing can switch it back to permissive until the next restart.

• Kernel debugging turned off

  The debug filesystem cannot be mounted. Kernel memory access through kcore, kernel debugging, kexec and hibernation are off.

• No flash or dump mode from the system

  The running system cannot reboot into Qualcomm’s emergency flash mode or dump mode, and panic dumps are off. The hardware keys still reach the flash mode.

• USB debugger off

  Qualcomm’s embedded USB debugger is turned off and its driver is not shipped. Only the system’s start-up processes can change its switch.

• Sandboxed Bluetooth

  The closed Bluetooth code runs in a sandbox that stops the service on any system call outside an allowed list.

• Sandboxed camera service

  The closed camera code runs in a sandbox: no child processes, only local sockets, no memory that is both writable and executable. Calls outside its list are logged, not blocked.

• Factory audio test removed

  A factory test function in the audio service that apps could reach is removed.

• Safe hardware video encoding

  The closed encoder was built for an older Android. Where it would overflow memory, it now fails safely with an error.

• Hardware video decoding off by default

  Videos play on Android’s sandboxed software decoders. Exploit protection can turn on the closed hardware H.264, HEVC and VP9 decoders from the next restart; if the codec setup differs from what start-up allowed, apps get no hardware decoders.

• Guarded modem messaging

  Only the phone’s own IMS service can use the modem’s IMS data channel, lookups are capped per app, and the kernel has no tunnel into the modem’s message bus.

• Protected in-call audio settings

  Only the phone and Bluetooth system services can change TTY, hearing-aid, HD voice and Bluetooth call settings. Other apps with the audio settings permission cannot.

• TIPC kept local

  Qualcomm’s mobile data needs the TIPC protocol, which GrapheneOS removes. DiamaneOS builds it without its network and encryption parts, and only two system services may use it.

• Fewer services with root

  The boot control, thermal and power statistics services run as their own users with few or no capabilities, instead of as root.

• Less access to the secure area

  Only the four services that need the phone’s secure area (TEE) can open it, and its device node accepts only the two requests they use. Unused access is removed, including the HDCP module, and every build is checked for this.

• Protected fingerprint data

  No other process can plant a file that the closed fingerprint code would read.

• Unused interfaces closed

  Leftover permissions and service names for hardware the phone does not have or features DiamaneOS does not ship are gone.

• No head-tracker input

  The parser for head trackers on paired Bluetooth and USB devices is not shipped, which removes attack surface from untrusted devices. Head trackers do not work.

Closed code replaced or removed

Closed parts of the stock software that DiamaneOS replaces with open code or drops. The modem firmware, the radio daemon and the IMS app stay closed.

• Data for VoLTE and Wi-Fi calling

  Our own Rust service sets up these connections with narrow permissions. It replaces Qualcomm’s closed services.

• Call audio

  A small open bridge passes call audio settings to the audio system. It cannot route or record audio, or go online.

• Clock keeping

  Our own service keeps the time across reboots, in place of Qualcomm’s.

• Bluetooth service

  Our own small service runs Qualcomm’s closed Bluetooth code. Unused libraries are gone.

• Audio system

  Built from the device maker’s source code, with extra crash protection. A few audio parts stay closed.

• Music decoding

  Music is decoded in Android’s sandboxed decoders, not on the closed audio chip.

• Audio effects

  Equalizer and other app effects use Android’s own code instead of Qualcomm’s closed effects.

• Power management

  An open power service replaces Qualcomm’s closed one, which ran with full access. The new one can only set CPU and GPU limits.

• Modem helpers

  Open replacements for two closed modem helpers that ran as root. They now run without special rights or network access, and the file server is hardened.

• IMEIs and hardware addresses

  Our own small tool gives the modem its IMEIs and the radios their factory addresses. It replaces a closed root service and logs no identifiers.

• Camera compute code

  About 34 MB of closed GPU code that only the camera used is gone.

• Unused services

  Two closed services nothing needs are off: the display colour service is not installed, and the offline camera service cannot register.

• GPS and location

  The GNSS service and Qualcomm’s location libraries are built from open source instead of closed builds. They do not use Qualcomm’s cloud services, Wi-Fi injection or diagnostics.

Mobile network

• Plain network type list

  Settings offers Android’s list of network types instead of a list of old CDMA modes.

• Wi-Fi calling mode shown

  Settings shows Wi-Fi calling as On for carriers whose mode it cannot name.

• Safer Wi-Fi calling sign-up

  A carrier’s sign-up page can only talk to the phone from the carrier’s own address. Retries and refreshes are limited, so failures no longer repeat forever.

• Fewer modem polls

  Network state polls to the modem are batched while the phone is idle, to save battery.

Performance and battery

• Faster app switching

  Memory compression uses lz4: apps reopen faster (median 118 instead of 137 ms) at a slightly lower compression ratio.

• Power boosts

  Touch, app launch, rendering and camera get short performance boosts. The camera’s hints end early when it no longer needs them.

• Battery statistics per subsystem

  A new power statistics service reports how long the chip, modem and signal processors sleep, so battery stats can show it.

• Faster boot

  Kernel modules load in parallel instead of one by one.

• Apps compiled for the actual cores

  Apps are compiled for the phone’s own CPU cores instead of a generic older target.

• Lighter camera preview

  The 16:9 camera preview is drawn by the display hardware instead of the GPU, and the screen stays at 60 Hz while a camera app previews.

• GPU and CPU tuning

  A lower GPU floor for heavy rendering and a higher limit for busy threads, so work can move to faster cores.