Everything You Need to Know About Rooting Your Android Phone
We love Android, but rooting your phone can give you the opportunity to
do so much more than your phone can do out of the box—whether it's
wireless tethering, speeding it up with overclocking, or customizing the
look of your phone with themes. Here's what you need to know about the
rooting process, and where to find a guide for your phone.
What Is Rooting, Exactly?
Rooting,
for those of you that don't know, means giving yourself root
permissions on your phone. It's similar running programs as
administrators in Windows, or running a command with
sudo in Linux. With a rooted phone, you can run apps that require access to certain system settings, as well as flash custom ROMs to your phone, which add all sorts of extra features. If you're on the fence about rooting, check out our top 10 reasons to root your Android phone for some motivation.
There are a ton of different Android phones out there, and while some
rooting methods might work for multiple phones, there is no
one-size-fits-all guide for rooting every phone out there. But, there
are a lot of things you should know about rooting before you start, and
this guide should help you out.
Glossary of Rooting Terms
As you
learn more about the rooting process, you'll probably run into a bunch
of terms that can be confusing. Here are some of the most important ones
and what they mean.
If there are any other terms you think we should add, let us know and we'll put them in!
- Root: Rooting means you have root access to your device—that is, it can run the
sudocommand, and has enhanced privileges allowing it to run apps like Wireless Tether or SetCPU. You can root either by installing the Superuser application or by flashing a custom ROM that includes root access.
- ROM: A ROM is a modified version of Android. It may contain extra features, a different look, speed enhancements, or even a version of Android that hasn't been released for your phone yet. We won't discuss ROMs in depth here, but if you want to use one once you're rooted, you can download from this collections.
- Kernel: A kernel is the component of your operating system that manages communications between your software and hardware. There are a lot of custom kernels out there for most phones, many of which can speed up your phone and increase your battery life, among other things. Be careful with kernels, though, as a bad one can cause serious problems with your phone and possibly even brick it.
- Radio: Radios are part of your phone's firmware. Your radio controls your cellular data, GPS, Wi-Fi, and other things like that. You can sometimes find custom radios for your phone that you can flash yourself, but beware as sometimes these can cause problems.
- Flash: Flashing essentially means installing something on your device, whether it be a ROM, a kernel, or a recovery (see below) that comes in the form of a ZIP file. Sometimes the rooting process requires flashing a ZIP file, sometimes it doesn't.
- Brick: To brick your phone is to break it during flashing or other acts. There is always a small risk with flashing, and if your phone becomes unable to function—that is, it basically becomes a brick—you've bricked your phone. The risk is very small, however, and more often than not people say "brick" when they really mean "it turns on but doesn't boot properly," which is a very fixable problem. See the FAQ below for more information.
- Bootloader: Your bootloader is the lowest level of software on your phone, running all the code that's necessary to start your operating system. Most bootloaders come locked, meaning you can't flash custom recoveries or ROMs. Unlocking your bootloader doesn't root your phone directly, but it does allow you to root and/or flash custom ROMs if you so desire.
- Recovery: Your recovery is the software on your phone that lets you make backups, flash ROMs, and perform other system-level tasks. The default recovery on your phone can't do much, but you can flash a custom recovery—like ClockworkMod or TWRP—after you've unlocked your bootloader that will give you much more control over your device. This is often an integral part of the rooting process.
- Nandroid: From most third-party recovery modules, you can make backups of your phone called nandroid backups. It's essentially a system image of your phone: Everything exactly how it is right now. That way, if you flash something that breaks your phone, you can just flash back to your most recent nandroid backup to return everything to normal. This is different from using an app like Titanium Backup that just backs up apps and/or settings—nandroid backups backup the entire system as one image. Titanium backups are best when switching between ROMs or phones.
- ADB: ADB stands for Android Debug Bridge, and it's a command line tool for your computer that can communicate with an Android device you've connected to it. It's part of the Android Software Developers Kit (SDK). Many of the root tools you'll find use ADB, whether you're typing the commands yourself or not. Unless the instructions call for installing the SDK and running ADB commands, you won't need to mess with it—you'll just need to know that it's what most of the tools use to root your phone.
- S-OFF: HTC phones use a feature called Signature Verification in HBOOT, their bootloader. By default, your phone has S-ON, which means it blocks you from flashing radio images—the code that manages your data, Wi-Fi, and GPS connections. Switching your phone to S-OFF lets you flash new radios. Rooting doesn't require S-OFF, but many rooting tools will give you S-OFF in addition to root access, which is nice.
- RUU, SBF, and OPS: ROM Upgrade Utilities (for HTC phones), System Boot Files (for Motorola phones), and OPS and PIT files (for Samsung phones) are files direct from the manufacturer that change the software on your phone. RUU and SBF files are how the manufacturers deliver your over-the-air upgrades, and modders often post leaked RUU and SBF files for flashing when the updates haven't been released yet. They're also handy when downgrading your phone, if a rooting method isn't available for the newest software version yet. You can flash RUUs right from your HTC phone, but Motorola users will need a Windows program called RSD Lite to flash SBF files, and Samsung users will need a tool called Odin to flash OPS and PIT files (note there is a specific version of Odin for each device)
Frequently Asked Rooting Questions
People have
a lot of questions about rooting, and we hear them all the time. Here
are some of the most frequently asked, laid out so you don't have to ask
someone else.
What's the difference between rooting, unlocking, and flashing a ROM?
This can be confusing, since the three practices are often performed at
the same time. We've detailed some of this above, but briefly:
Unlocking your bootloader is usually the first step in the process and
allows you to flash a custom recovery. From there, you can then give
yourself root access or flash a ROM. Root access isn't required to flash
a ROM, but almost all custom ROMs will come with root access built-in.
Note that
when we say "unlock" in this guide, we mean unlocking your
bootloader—not unlocking your phone to use a different carrier, which is
a completely different thing and doesn't always require hacking (since you can often purchase carrier-unlocked phones directly from Google or elsewhere).
Can I unroot my phone?
Yes. If you decide you don't like being rooted, you can often find
instructions on unrooting your phone as well. Usually it involves
flashing an RUU, SBF, or something similar to return the phone to truly
stock settings.
