Murena /e/OS 4.0 Launches With One-Click Google Migration Tool

Murena launched /e/OS 4.0 today with the company's most direct attempt yet to address the practical obstacle behind most failed attempts to leave Google: not finding a different phone, but untangling a decade of email, contacts, Drive files, and account relationships from Google's infrastructure. The release lowers that barrier. How much, and for whom, depends on what you need from your phone after the switch.

The headline feature is an updated Gmail Migration Assistant that Murena describes as "one-click migration" from Google services, per Android Authority. Users can import Gmail messages alongside contacts, calendars, and Drive files, set up automatic forwarding to a new Murena address, and notify existing contacts of the change. The more novel piece: the assistant can scan inbox history to identify the subscriptions, banks, and online services tied to an old Google account, then guide users through updating each one.

That last part is what separates this from a data-export tool. Moving files has always been possible. Mapping the account relationships woven through your financial and online life is harder, and Murena frames this as the gap it's specifically targeting.

No independent testing of the assistant's accuracy or edge-case behavior is available yet. How it handles large inboxes, complex Drive folder structures, or users juggling multiple Google accounts remains unknown. The announced workflow is promising; whether it holds up is a separate question.

/e/OS 4.0 one-click migration and what else ships with it

The migration tooling addresses the setup problem. /e/OS 4.0 also closes a more basic gap with Murena Backup, a cloud service covering installed apps, app and system settings, accounts, emails, media, and calendars, as Android Authority reported today. Murena founder Gaël Duval had described this feature as something "expected in a modern OS" in his roadmap post two weeks ago. Its arrival removes one of the last obvious reasons to keep a Google account as a fallback.

Rounding out the release, /e/OS 4.0 and the forthcoming 4.1 update bring Murena Meet, a Google Meet alternative running on the company's own infrastructure with meeting scheduling and screen sharing, and Murena Sign, a document signing tool supporting PDFs and Word documents. Murena says both will roll out within the next month, per Android Authority.

The pattern across all of this is consistent: Murena's answer to Google's cloud is its own cloud. That's a coherent design choice, prioritizing a working ecosystem over maximum decentralization. Switching to /e/OS changes the vendor. It does not eliminate cloud dependence.

Murena also announced two new handsets developed with German brand Gigaset. The GS6 and GS6 Pro ship with a Dimensity 7300 chip, a 6.67-inch 120Hz OLED display, 8GB of RAM, a removable 5,300mAh battery, 15W wireless charging, eSIM support, and an IP68 rating, according to Android Authority. Devices that arrive with /e/OS preinstalled reduce installation complexity, though as discussed below, that doesn't address what happens after setup.

The app compatibility problem the migration wizard can't reach

Migrating your data and functioning without Google's certified app ecosystem are two different things, and /e/OS 4.0 doesn't close that gap.

A thread posted to the /e/ community forum two weeks ago illustrates the problem plainly. A new /e/OS user on a Fairphone 6 found that one banking app refused login entirely, flagging the device as unsupported or rooted. A second app allowed access but stopped delivering push notifications required for secure authentication. The community response was direct: "nobody can guarantee that such apps work or stay working on /e/OS, it's a nice bonus if they do for as long as they do." The same reply suggested keeping a second device for banking and authentication if the apps can't be made to work.

That's one forum thread. But it describes a structural condition, not an edge case. Banking apps that run device certification checks, enterprise tools with compliance requirements, and authentication apps that depend on Google's push infrastructure are post-switch problems. A migration wizard that successfully moves a Gmail archive doesn't help when a bank decides the phone isn't a real phone.

The device breadth that makes /e/OS widely accessible also contributes to this friction. Murena supports over 250 devices, including hardware people already own, which Duval frames as both practical and environmentally deliberate: "the greenest phone is the one you already own," per his roadmap post. That's a genuine differentiator from more restrictive alternatives. It also means bootloader states, installation methods, and device attestation behavior vary considerably across that catalog, which is part of why app compatibility isn't a uniform story even among motivated users.

Who should switch now, and who should wait

/e/OS 4.0 is aimed at privacy-minded users who want Google out of their daily life and can tolerate occasional app failures in exchange for a working, consumer-accessible alternative. The migration assistant and Murena Backup now remove most of the setup friction that previously required technical confidence. The target isn't security maximalists it's people who want a practical exit.

Anyone whose daily routine depends on specific banking apps, corporate authentication tools, or Google Play-certified enterprise software is likely to run into walls. The community's honest advice to some users hasn't changed: keep a second phone.

The comparison with GrapheneOS is worth understanding. GrapheneOS uses sandboxed rather than replaced Google services, bootloader relocking with user keys, and deliberately narrow hardware support, per a Neural Digest analysis from last month. The project reported roughly 400,000 active users as of April 2026, about four times Murena's self-reported figure, according to the same analysis. The GrapheneOS team has publicly criticized Murena's security implementation at some point, though the specifics aren't detailed in available reporting, as Android Authority noted today.

The practical distinction: GrapheneOS hardens the OS and leaves ecosystem decisions to the user. Murena builds the ecosystem and makes it accessible. Both are credible options; they serve genuinely different buyers.

The context behind the timing

Murena says it's approaching 100,000 regular users and claims to have reached financial break-even in 2025, figures the company reports itself, per Duval's roadmap post. Self-reported numbers carry their own caveats, but they point to a project that has enough stability to build for users who haven't switched yet, not just the community that already has. The migration tooling and backup service are the clearest expression of that shift in focus.

The institutional test will be harder. Murena says /e/OS is currently being piloted by a university, a municipality, and a telecom operator, three organizations with different compliance requirements, the company reported in its roadmap post two weeks ago. Consumer users can absorb a banking app that occasionally breaks. Institutions generally can't. If Murena clears that bar, its claim that leaving Google is now operationally practical gets considerably more weight behind it.