Questions before jumping into GrapheneOS

GrapheneMantra
Google Maps: works
Uber: works
Spotify: works

I can't speak to the others.

Backups are definitely a weak point. My own strategy is to make sure I can restore everything from some other source - either a third party service, my self-hosted file sync, etc. (i.e., I don't bother to backup the phone itself).

GrapheneMantra

GrapheneMantra Spotify
Snapchat
Dating apps (Hinge, Badoo, Tinder, Bumble)

Can confirm that they all work.

Backups are unfortunately a little bit complicated. I just have my contacts, calendar and photos on my server and have my phone sync to it. For the apps, well... I just have to manually reinstall everything if I have to. But its not that tedious, from time to time I export my favorites and installed list from F-Droid and Obtainium and then install the rest from the play store.
Just keep everything on servers and have as little as possible on the phone, that makes switching or recovering phones much easier. Plus, it is good op-sec.

Clueless Just keep everything on servers

I've been thinking of doing this for a while. How has your setup/process been?

GrapheneMantra Use this app for backup, sms, phone logs and contacts https://github.com/tmo1/sms-ie

I just wanted to say that some of the apps you use have really good alternatives like Organic Maps or OSMAnd to replace Google Maps and Spotube or Blade work as Spotify clients. I completely understand you may have a specific uescase which only the apps you mentioned can satisfy, but I wanted to tell you the options.

pit2p Use this app for backup, sms, phone logs and contacts https://github.com/tmo1/sms-ie

I second this.

yore
Depends on what you are willing to spend. I am very happy with Synology which I recently upgraded to a DS224+. It has everything one needs: contacts & calendar which you can sync via webdav, drive/cloud, office suite and photo backups (and much more, especially with docker). I also love the note station app.
Almost everything I just mentioned has its own android and/or desktop app. You can connect your own domain or access it via Tail scale. The latter is more secure, but doesn't let you share stuff with the outside.
But my model cost about 340€, if that's to expensive for you, then you can try to build your own NAS with a raspberry pi or just rent a next cloud instance from a reputable provider. I used Linuxfabrik in Switzerland for a while. It shouldn't cost more than 10€ per month. You can check here for providers: https://nextcloud.com/sign-up/

Word of caution about dating apps:
I do all the things when it comes to data privacy: Graphene, VPN, Email alias, etc...and it appears Hinge doesn't like that. After two weeks of no matches whatsoever, I began the process of deleting my account, only to be presented with a screen saying my account had in fact been banned. Hinge refuses to clarify what caused any of its users to receive a ban, but I didn't interact with anyone on the app so it can't have been any sort of community standards violation or anything.
Tinder has almost no real users on it at this point, and I don't agree with some of the decisions Bumble makes as a company, so I can't really speak to those apps. But I'm just letting you know I think Hinge thought my privacy precautions were suspicious enough to justify a ban.

I use google playstore. With sandboxed google services. VPN, mysudo, next dns. I have not been able to get any of the dating apps to work for me. I had accounts with my apple or facebook account. Have not been able to make any new ones. I have been using grapheneos for a month or two. So I am fairly new. I use a third party podcast software that does not require a log in. Also, I have been trying the waze map app. I had some problems on a trip last week. But, it got me where I needed to be.

5rlyn

it feels like trying to participate in social media and apps like those that using a VPN becomes very difficult. Instagram can all of the sudden decide to ban you after you have been using your account for awhile. It is frustrating. Shadowbanning is another evil that is really lame, reddit does it where you think you are making posts that are being seen as they don't tell you anything and the posts show up for you, but nobody else can see your posts.

GrapheneMantra Back when I used LineageOS, I could back up the entire phone via the Settings app,

On LineageOS and GrapheneOS (as well as most custom firmware), SeedVault is used for backup.

one can't even post on 4chan with a vpn

I need to find a set of fun social media sites I can participate in and have good conversations every day that work on my phone when I have 24/7 vpn on all the time

GrapheneMantra As a Linux user, one of my biggest complaints with my current device (an iPhone) is that I'm only able to back up my photos to my main machine, nothing else. Back when I used LineageOS, I could back up the entire phone via the Settings app, and selectively back up certain apps via the filesystem (for example, I could copy the Messages app's sqlite3 database over adb so that I'd have an archived copy of all messages I've sent/received).

As a Linux user, you can set up a self-hosted server with backups of your main apps. For instance set up an Immich server for your pictures, ...

I'd also like to ask a question. On my old phone, the main profile was google-less and I had a secondary profile with all the google services. I ran into a few minor issues, mainly my bank app and google wallet. Would using google services on the main profile and googleless on the 2ndary one fix my issues?