A supported Pixel
Bought unlocked rather than from a mobile network, since network branded phones often block the unlocking this requires. Check your phone before you start.
Test builds, for evaluation only
Installing OBSIDIAN
Putting OBSIDIAN on a phone replaces the operating system it came with. Everything on the phone is erased in the process. It runs on the Google Pixel 6, 7, 8, 9 and 10. Read this page before starting.
You put it on your own phone
OBSIDIAN does not come on a phone. You buy a supported Pixel and install it from your own computer. The easiest way is the browser installer: open it in Chrome, Edge or Brave, plug the phone in, and press each button in turn. The steps further down do the same thing from a command line. Either way it takes around half an hour, most of which is the phone working on its own.
What you need
A computer and a cable
Windows, macOS or Linux, running on the computer itself rather than in a virtual machine, and the USB-C cable that came with the phone. Plug straight into the computer, not into a hub or a monitor.
About 6 GB free
Room to download the 2 GB phone image and unpack it, and half an hour when you will not need the phone.
Before you start
Back up what you want to keep
Installing erases the phone completely. Photos, messages and accounts on it are gone for good, and cannot be recovered afterwards.
Get Google's platform tools
The small tools that talk to the phone, fastboot and adb, come from Google as Android SDK Platform-Tools at developer.android.com/tools/releases/platform-tools. Unpack them somewhere easy to find.
On Windows
Windows 10 and 11 already include a driver that works with these phones in bootloader mode. Older versions of Windows need Google's USB driver. If flashing stops when the phone shows its fastbootd screen, Windows has not attached a driver for that mode: in Device Manager, update the phone's driver to WinUsb Device, following the steps on the browser installer page.
On Linux
Linux needs permission to reach the phone over USB. On Debian and Ubuntu, install the package android-sdk-platform-tools-common, then unplug the phone and plug it back in.
On macOS
Nothing extra is needed.
The steps
- 1
Allow the phone to be unlocked
On the phone, open Settings, go to About phone, and tap Build number seven times. Go back to Settings, then System, then Developer options, and turn on OEM unlocking. The phone needs to be on Wi-Fi for this.
- 2
Start the phone in bootloader mode
Turn the phone off. Hold Volume Down and press Power until a screen with a start arrow appears. Connect it to the computer.
- 3
Unlock the bootloader
This is what allows a different operating system to be installed, and it erases the phone. Run this from the folder with the platform tools, then use the volume buttons on the phone to choose Unlock the bootloader and press Power to confirm.
fastboot flashing unlock
- 4
Flash OBSIDIAN
Unpack the release and run the flashing script for your computer. The phone restarts several times on its own. Do not unplug it.
- 5
First start
The first start takes a few minutes while the phone prepares its apps. Then set a screen PIN, open the chat app, and choose a username. Your keys are made on the phone at that moment.
While these are test builds, the bootloader stays unlocked and the phone shows a warning when it starts. That is expected, and it is one of the things that changes with the first proper release.
If it stops partway through
Step 4 sends about two gigabytes to the phone, and on Windows the connection to these phones sometimes drops while it is doing it. The script writes it again from the beginning, up to three times, so most of the time you will see it start over and then finish by itself. Nothing is wrong with the phone when that happens.
If all three attempts fail, the phone has half a system on it and sits on the bootloader screen because there is nothing to start. It is not broken and nothing about it is permanent. Hold Power for ten seconds to turn it off, then hold Volume Down and press Power to reach the bootloader again, and run the script once more. Three things fix this almost every time: use the USB-C cable that came with the phone, plug straight into the computer rather than into a hub or a monitor, and try a different port.
Updating later
OBSIDIAN does not update itself. There is no channel that can reach your phone, push anything to it, or change it without you, and that is deliberate: anything able to update your phone from a distance is also a way in. New releases appear on the downloads page and you install them when you decide to.
The honest cost of that: installing a new release erases the phone, the same as the first install. Your account, your messages and your wallet go with it. An account cannot be moved to a new install, because its keys only ever existed on the phone, so you register again afterwards under a different name. The old one stays taken, by an account nobody can sign in to any more, so choose the next name expecting to keep it, and tell your contacts it has changed. Write down anything you need first, in particular your wallet's seed.
Android's security fixes arrive monthly and reach you only when you install a release that contains them, so it is worth checking the downloads page from time to time. Seamless updates that keep your data are on the list of things to build, and are not here yet.
Going back to normal Android
You can return the phone to Google's own software at any time. Doing so erases the phone again.
- 1
Open Google's flashing tool
Go to flash.android.com in Chrome or Edge. It is Google's own tool for putting their software back on a Pixel.
- 2
Connect the phone in bootloader mode
Start the phone in bootloader mode as in step 2 above, and connect it.
- 3
Choose your phone in the list
Pick the latest factory image, let it wipe the phone, and choose to lock the bootloader at the end.
Test builds do not install a key of their own, so nothing more is needed today. Once release builds lock the phone with the OBSIDIAN key, you will first need to remove that key, with the bootloader unlocked, by running fastboot erase avb_custom_key.
The browser installer
It does everything above from a web page in Chrome, Edge or another browser built on Chromium, with the phone plugged in. It needs more free space than the command line, because the browser keeps its own copy of the unpacked image while it works. Two parts are still to come.
Install from the browser Built
Open a page, plug the phone in, press a button. No developer tools to install, nothing to type.
Check what it installed Built
The release is checked against its published SHA-256 as it downloads, and it is not used unless it matches.
Lock the phone again Planned
Once release keys exist, the installer locks the bootloader at the end, so nothing else can be flashed onto the phone afterwards. The startup warning stays, but changes to a short notice showing the fingerprint of the OBSIDIAN key.
Prove it worked Planned
A way to confirm the phone is running genuine, unmodified OBSIDIAN rather than something that looks like it.
Download
The downloads page lists every release for every phone, each with its date, size and SHA-256 to check before installing. The browser installer finds the newest release for your phone and checks it for you, so this is for installing from a command line, or for keeping a copy.