The controls you need are hidden behind Android's developer menu — unlocking it is a famous little ritual. From the home screen, swipe up to open your apps and tap Settings, then scroll all the way down the list and open About phone. Head to the very bottom to find Build number and tap it seven times, quickly — after a few taps Android starts counting you down (“you are now 3 steps away from being a developer…”), asks for your PIN to confirm, and then declares it: “You are now a developer!”

Now Settings > System > Developer options — find OEM unlocking and switch it on. Android shows an “Allow OEM unlocking?” warning (it turns off some device-protection features by design); tap Enable and the toggle flips on.

Time to power down and reboot into the bootloader. Hold Power + Volume Up together until the power menu appears, then tap Power off. Give it 10–15 seconds to shut down fully — wait until the screen is completely dark before continuing. Then hold Power + Volume Down together and keep holding until the Fastboot Mode screen appears — a black screen with device details and a red warning triangle. Don't press anything else; the phone just waits here for the installer.

Move over to your computer now. Open a supported web browser — Chrome, Edge, Brave or Chromium (not Firefox or Safari) — and go to grapheneos.org/install/web. Plug your phone into the computer with its USB cable while it sits on the Fastboot Mode screen.

Scroll down the page to the Unlocking the bootloader section and click Unlock bootloader. Your browser pops up a device picker — click your Pixel to select it, then click Connect. When the page shows “Bootloader unlocking triggered successfully”, the browser and phone are talking to each other.

Now look at your phone. It's showing a confirmation with “Do not unlock the bootloader” selected and a warning that unlocking will erase the device. Press Volume Down once to change the selection to “Unlock the bootloader”, then press the Power button to confirm. The phone wipes, restarts, and returns to the Fastboot Mode screen — now reading Device state: unlocked.

Leave the phone on this screen — don't press Start. It waits here while the next steps run from your computer.

Back in the browser, scroll to Obtaining factory images and click Download release — the installer fetches the correct image for your exact Pixel (around 2 GB) and a progress bar fills to Downloaded release. Then, just below, click Flash release. The installer does the rest automatically: flashing the firmware, rebooting the phone into the bootloader, and flashing the OS, with the progress bar tracking the whole way.

With the OS flashed, scroll down to Locking the bootloader and click Lock bootloader. Locking is what re-arms verified boot, so that only genuine, unmodified GrapheneOS can ever run — it’s the move that completes your device’s security, so don’t skip it. A moment after you click, the page confirms with “Bootloader locking triggered successfully” and the phone shows a final confirmation for you to accept.

Look at your phone one last time. It shows a confirmation with “Do not lock the bootloader” selected. Press Volume Down once to change the selection to “Lock the bootloader”, then press the Power button to confirm. The phone restarts and returns to the Fastboot Mode screen — now reading Device state: locked in green. Verified boot is armed, and the install is done.

Press the Power button to start. The phone restarts and begins the boot process, finally landing on the “Welcome to GrapheneOS” setup screen — where you can pick your language, join Wi-Fi, and set a PIN to finish setting up your device.