GrapheneOS' rewritten Messages app is released

Notable changes in version 13:

Version 13 replaces the legacy interface with Jetpack Compose and Material 3. It rebuilds every screen, adds new conversation controls and large-screen support, and fixes problems with crashes, notifications, security, and message handling.

Interface

• Material 3 / Expressive design with shapes
• Two-pane conversation layout on large screens
• New adaptive app icon with a monochrome variant
• New onboarding covering SMS privacy, permissions, and default-app setup
• Correct display cutout and system bar handling in both orientations

Conversation list

• Pin conversations
• Snooze notifications for 1, 8, or 24 hours, or indefinitely
• Mark conversations as unread from the menu or by swiping
• Swipe to archive or unarchive
• Quick actions from conversation avatars
• Redesigned multi-select actions for archiving, deletion, blocking, and notifications
• Indicators for unread, pinned, snoozed, notifications off, work profiles, and incoming MMS status
• Redesigned archive screen
• Pinning, archiving, and deletion now apply immediately

Conversations

• Rebuilt message bubbles, grouping, selection, and link handling
• Select multiple messages for deletion
• Full-screen message details with copyable sender, recipients, timestamps, delivery status, size, type, and priority
• SMS segment and character counter
• Add, edit, or remove MMS subjects from the conversation overflow menu
• Blocked-sender banner with an unblock action
• Add participants to existing conversations or create groups from the new-chat screen
• Redesigned recipient picker with alphabetical sections, email addresses, formatted numbers, and multiple numbers per contact
• Emergency numbers cannot be dialed from conversations
• SIM fallback now uses the system default instead of the first SIM
• Top-bar actions for calls, contact cards, and conversation settings
• Attachment limits checked before sending, with visible send errors
• Messages arriving during conversation deletion are no longer destroyed

Attachments and media

• Rebuilt media picker with photo and video capture, flash controls, and Android's embedded photo picker
• Redesigned audio recording with slide-to-cancel and hands-free locking
• Attachment captions
• Rewritten photo viewer with pinch-to-zoom, page indicators, details, and correct system bar handling
• Rewritten vCard viewer with avatars, contact-change refresh, and saving to contacts

Sharing and forwarding

• New share picker with search, recent conversations, alphabetical contacts, and multi-select
• Edit shared content, add a subject, preview it, and choose a SIM
• Forwarding and the widget use the same picker
• The widget's new-message button opens the new-chat screen
• Missing shared text is read from its content URI; missing subjects use the shared title
• Sharing failures are now reported

Settings

• Rewritten main, general, and per-SIM settings
• New Privacy section
• Rewritten licenses screen with generated license data
• Existing per-conversation notification settings are preserved

Privacy and security

• YouTube link previews are opt-in and disabled by default
• Shared-content validation rejects file: URIs and private app files, and checks content URI permissions
• Shared text read from content URIs receives the same private-file checks
• Widget receivers are no longer exported, and widget intents are restricted to the app
• Pending intents use FLAG_IMMUTABLE where mutability is not required
• Allocation limits added to EXIF APP1, MMS PDU, and MMS content-type parsing
• Fixed GIF null dereferences, missing dimension checks before native transcoding, and signed-character colour corruption
• Updated the AOSP vCard parser with upstream fixes
• Bounded notification people lists, fixing issue a reported crash
• Onboarding explains that SMS is unencrypted and recommends end-to-end encryption for sensitive messages

Crash fixes

• Fixed crashes in the widget, failed SMS database inserts, declined-call quick responses, settings for unsaved numbers, and share intents
• Share intents no longer silently drop attachments

Messages and notifications

• Incoming SMS messages are imported immediately
• Failed-message notifications are delivered correctly
• Inline notification replies no longer open the home screen
• Unread notifications survive reboots
• Blocked conversations no longer play notification sounds
• Deleted conversations no longer receive notifications during sync
• Sync no longer overwrites archive changes
• Fixed a race between MMS downloads and notifications
• Pending MMS messages show their subject and download status
• Unknown group senders show their phone number
• Rewritten Class 0 message dialog with correct timeout and lifecycle handling
• Low-storage warnings are dismissible and also appear when the message database is full

Multiple users and work profiles

• Secondary-user notifications show message content and use unique IDs
• Secondary users are told that pending MMS must be retrieved by the Owner user; the downloaded messages are then available to all users
• Work-profile conversations are labelled

Accessibility

• Screen-reader labels for screens, panes, controls, and rows
• Timestamps announce full weekday names
• Copying message details is available as an accessibility action
• Fixed conversation-list focus and swipe-action state announcements
• Sending a message produces an announcement and sound

Testing

• Expanded unit and instrumented tests for the new data, domain, and Compose UI layers
• Tests, builds, and static analysis run on every pull request
• License reports are generated and checked in CI

Platform and dependencies

Updates to dependencies and required platform version:

• minSdk 36
• targetSdk 37
• compileSdk 37
• Android Gradle Plugin 9.3.2
• Kotlin 2.4.10
• Gradle 9.7.1
• Glide 5.0.9
• Guava 33.7.1
• libphonenumber 9.0.38
• Added Compose BOM 2026.08.00, Material 3 Adaptive, Navigation 3, Coil 3, and CameraX

A full list of changes from the previous release (version 12) is available through the Git commit log between the releases.