How to root Android phones and tablets (and unroot them)

So, you’ve rooted your Android device and now you’ve been granted access to a host of Android subsystems that were formerly restricted. Since you’ve gone through the effort of rooting your Android, why not take advantage of the opportunity by installing a few of the previously locked Android root apps?

Root apps only run properly on rooted Android devices, and allow you to do things you otherwise wouldn’t be able to. Below, we’ve rounded up the top Android root apps, so you can make the most of your newly rooted device.

Premium root apps

If your rooted device is getting on a bit, then you probably want to squeeze as much performance out of it as possible. XBooster Pro gives you the tools to really eke the best out of your mobile hardware. Like the gaming modes we’re seeing added to many high-end gaming smartphones, XBooster uses its root permissions to shut down unrequired apps, so your phone’s hardware can focus on what really matters — smooth performance in your mobile gaming. While a dollar isn’t much, there’s also a free version if you want to check it out before you buy it.

Franco Kernel Manager ($1)

Combine Tasker with your rooted Android device and you have a toolbox that’s capable of automating everything from the simplest tasks to impressively complex lines. It works without root, but it’s more powerful on rooted devices. You are going to want to work through the tutorials if you expect to get the most from this app, but it’s worth it. Start off with simple things like automatically launching the music app of your choice when you plug in your headphones, or turning on Wi-Fi when you fire up the browser, and build your way up to more complicated scenes.

Free root apps

Mobile batteries have a limited lifespan, and they all eventually deteriorate to the point where they’re no longer able to be used, and may even become unsafe. If you’re rooting an older device, you might be worried about this happening to your battery. This root-only app has one job: To monitor your phone’s battery and ensure it doesn’t stress itself by overcharging. Once the phone’s battery level reaches a set point, this app will turn off charging altogether, making sure your battery’s wear and tear from overcharging is kept to a minimum. While it’s not the flashiest app around, it’s certainly a useful one to install.

ALogcat

You can do an awful lot with rooting, and you can quickly get bogged down with individual apps to handle each factor you can customize and play with. The Root Essentials app gives you control of a bunch of these functions within a single app, including changing your device’s font (with 700 other options), lowering your display’s dots per inch (dpi) for better battery life, and calibrating your battery. While you can get other apps to handle these functions, it’s much easier to get them all in a single place.

Wi-Fi Key Recovery

Forget your Wi-Fi password? You’re not alone. Luckily, though, there’s an app that makes recovering it significantly easier: Wi-Fi Key Recovery. Using your phone’s root capabilities, the tool can reveal the passwords of secured hotspots for which you’ve previously connected. That may sound illicit, but there’s no need to call the cyber police — Wi-Fi Key Recovery can’t crack the passwords of unfamiliar networks. Rest assured that your secrets are safe.

Root Booster

Remember that little setting on your laptop that lets you change between settings for high performance and battery saving? Root Booster is that, but for your rooted phone. Using Root Booster, you can select presets that help maintain your battery life by dialing back the CPU and putting apps to sleep, or you can ramp it up in the opposite direction, getting the best possible performance from your device.

File Explorer Root Browser

Wonder what your Android phone is actually doing as it’s booting up? Turns out a whole lot is going on, though it’s normally hidden behind the facade of a pretty animation. If ever your geekier side wins out, you can opt to see a scrolling text log of all the booting tasks and self-checks your phone is performing as they happen with LiveBoot. It’s incredibly customizable — you can change the text color and content of the messages, for instance — and all of the info is placed atop an animation. Its compatibility requirements are a bit more stringent than some other root apps on the market, however, meaning you’ll need a device with Android 4.3 and or newer.

3C All-in-One Toolbox

3C’s All-in-One Toolbox promises to be a one-stop shop for tinkering with your rooted Android device. It combines an impressive number of 3C features into a single package, including a device manager, file manager, app manager, battery manager, network manager, task manager, CPU manager, system manager, ROM manager, monitoring, system component switches, and so on. Some of these features can be used without rooting your phone, but most require a rooted device to function. Also, while the app is free to download, some of the features require an in-app purchase, costing anything from $1 to $11.

Servicely

Notice that your device’s battery is draining quicker than it ought to? Rogue apps are the culprit more often than not, specifically apps with ongoing background tasks that run without your knowledge. Short of uninstalling the offending software, there’s typically not much you can do. But Servicely, a relative newcomer to the root app scene, promises to expose the bad actors. And better yet, it lets you suppress them. The app will check at a specified interval to see which unwanted services are running in the background and, depending on how it’s configured, kill them automatically or notify you of their misbehavior. It’s one of the best ways to extend your device’s battery life short of buying an external battery.

Flashify

If you’ve got an insatiable hunger for customization or an unscratchable itch for tweaking, chances are you’ll love Flashify. It’s an app that allows you to bundle together an abundance of software — ZIP folders, kernels, recovery images, boot images, etc. — in a queue that can be flashed sequentially. Best of all, though, is that the app handles every installation. Typically, this degree of modification requires rebooting your device into recovery mode. The app also houses a backup and restore function that uploads your device’s essential files to cloud services such as Box, Dropbox, and Google Drive. How’s that for convenient?

AdAway

KSWEB lets you turn your Android device into a portable web server. It includes a lighttpd web server, an FTP server, PHP programming language, MySQL DBMS, and a scheduler, which lets you plan and perform various actions on your web data. It comes with a text editor for editing HP, HTML, JS, and CSS files, and it also enables you to manage PHP packages. The app provides a streamlined web interface, and anyone who has problems can reach out to its developer’s online support.

System App Remover

The first thing a lot of people want to do when they root is to rid themselves of bloatware, and with this app, you can uninstall just about anything. You can also get rid of multiple apps at once, or rename them, move them, and re-organize them. It automatically backs up all the apps you uninstall so you can test for stability issues and, if need be, restore the ones you’ve removed.

Titanium Backup

With ROM Manager, you can back up your existing ROM, flash new ROMs, and install custom themes or kernels. It features a long list of ROMs which is frequently updated, and you can install ROMs to the SD card or OTA (over the air). The premium version packs a few extras, chiefly update notifications and automatic backups.

Substratum

Customization is a huge part of what makes Android great, and rooting doubly so. While swapping themes is possible on an unrooted phone, you’ll never get as many options as you do from Substratum on a rooted phone. With over 700 official and community-created themes to choose from, Substratum allows you to change the look and style of the entirety of your phone, from the settings screen to the home page. If you rooted for full control and customization, then you need this app.

Greenify

If you’re convinced that some non-essential apps are running in the background and eating up your battery juice, or impacting on system performance, then you can do something about it. While other apps allow you to freeze or uninstall bloatware and unwanted services, Greenify is designed to put apps into a state of hibernation when you aren’t using them. The beauty of this is that you can use them as normal when you want to, but when you close them down they won’t be running in the background and consuming resources.

DiskDigger

Everyone knows the pain of accidentally deleting a photo, but if your device is rooted then you should be able to retrieve that lost image, and it won’t cost you anything. This simple app does exactly what it says it will: it undeletes and recovers lost images or photos from your internal memory or your memory card (even if it has been reformatted). You can restore the files or send them directly from the app by email.

Android rooting is the ideal way to get more control over your smartphone, opening up a world of unknown possibilities, but it’s important to approach it with caution. Rooting isn’t without its risks — and if something goes wrong, it can void your warranty, leave you with a broken smartphone or tablet, or worse.

Before proceeding, it is important to understand that rooting is not always a straightforward process, and you may encounter hiccups along the way. If you decide that you absolutely need to root your Android device, continue below, but know that it isn’t for the faint of heart or technology-inexperienced.

This guide on how to root Android phones will walk you through the steps to root your device. While we can root some phones in minutes, others are going to take a little more research. But one thing is clear: rooting your phone is one of the best ways to tap into your Android device’s true potential.

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Rooting an Android phone or tablet is akin to jailbreaking an iPhone — basically, it allows you to dive deeper into a phone’s sub-system. After rooting, you can access the entire operating system to customize just about anything on your Android device, and you can get around any restrictions that your manufacturer or carrier may have applied.

Rooting is best undertaken with caution. You must back up your phone’s software before installing — or “flash,” in rooting terms — a custom ROM (a modified version of Android).

Why would you root?

Julian Chokkattu/Digital Trends

One of the biggest incentives to root your Android phone is so you can strip away bloatware that’s impossible to uninstall otherwise (although you can sometimes disable it — check out our guide on disabling bloatware). On some devices, rooting will enable previously disabled settings, like wireless tethering. Additional benefits include the ability to install specialized tools and flash custom ROMs, each of which can add extra features and improve your phone or tablet’s performance.

Why wouldn’t you root?

There are essentially four potential cons to rooting your Android.

How to prepare your Android device for rooting

One of the easiest ways to root an Android device is by using an app, and several rooting apps have garnered attention over the years — Framaroot, Firmware.mobi, Kingo Root, BaiduRoot, One Click Root, SuperSU, and Root Master are among the most reliable. These services will usually root your device in the time you take to brush your teeth. But some of them only support devices running older versions of Android, so you may need to do some shopping around to find one that works for your device. If you’re looking to root an even older device, you may need to check Firmware.mobi.

It used to be that rooting Android versions from Android 7.0 Nougat upwards was more difficult. The verified boot service will check the device’s cryptographic integrity to detect if your device’s system files are compromised, inhibiting legitimate rooting apps. Thankfully, rooting apps have caught up with the curve, and rooting newer Android versions is much easier than it used to be.

If your phone isn’t compatible with a one-click rooting app, you must spend a little time researching alternatives on Android forums. The best place to start is XDA Developers Forum — look for a thread about your phone or tablet, and you’re likely to find a method.

Preparing for rooting

Back up everything you cannot live without before you start. You should also always back up your phone’s current ROM before you flash a new one. You will also want to ensure that your device has a full charge before you begin.

Installing the Android SDK Platform Tools

Rooting used to involve downloading Google’s entire Android development kit. Thankfully, that’s not the case anymore, and all you need is the Android SDK Platform Tools.

Download and install the Android SDK Platform Tools from Google’s developer site. There are choices for Windows, Mac, and Linux. These instructions are for Windows machines. Extract the zipped files. When asked what directory to install the software to, we recommend setting it to C:android-sdk. If you choose a different location, make sure you remember it.

Installing device drivers

To ensure your computer can properly communicate with your smartphone or tablet, you will need to install the appropriate USB driver.

Devices from some manufacturers come with the drivers included in the phone’s software, so all you need to do to install the appropriate USB driver is attach your phone to your PC by USB cable. OnePlus is an example of this, but it’s worth connecting your phone first to see whether USB drivers will automatically install.

Otherwise, here is a list of drivers from the most popular manufacturers:

Unlock your bootloader

Before you get started, you need to unlock your device’s bootloader. The bootloader, simply put, is the program that loads the device’s operating system. It determines which applications run during your phone or tablet’s startup process.

Some manufacturers require you to get a key to unlock the bootloader. Motorola, HTC, LG, and Sony provide step-by-step instructions on how to do so, but a word of warning: They require you to register for a developer account.

Once you have taken those steps, you can embark on the unlocking process. You will need to put your device in fastboot mode. It’s different for every phone, but on most devices, rebooting the device and holding down the Power and Volume Down buttons for 10 seconds does the trick (HTC phones require that you hit the Volume Down key and press the Power button to select it).

Once you have booted into fastboot, head to the folder you previously unzipped your Android SDK files to. Then, open your computer’s command prompt by holding down Shift + Right Click and choosing Open a Command Prompt Here. If your device requires a code, you will get a long string of characters. Paste it into the box on your device manufacturer’s website, submit the form, and await an email with a key, a file, and further instructions.

Unlock your device’s bootloader by connecting it to your computer and placing it in fastboot mode again. Pull up the command prompt by typing cmd into your Start menu.

For Google Nexus and Pixel devices, the commands are easy:

It’s the same for Samsung devices:

Motorola’s command is a little different:

So is HTC’s:

Confirm the unlock, and you’re one step closer to rooting your Android device.

Some manufacturers and carriers don’t sanction bootloader unlocking, but that doesn’t mean it can’t be done. Try searching the XDA Developers forum for workarounds and unofficial solutions.

How to root your Android device with multiple programs

There are a lot of different ways to root your phone or tablet. Here are a few of our favorites.

Rooting with Root Master

Rooting with Framaroot

Framaroot is a newer one-click rooting service, and it aims to make the process of rooting easy for everyone with a simple one-click “root” button. However, you might have to jump through a couple of hoops to get it started.

Then that’s it — you’re ready!

Rooting your Android device with Firmware. mobi

Firmware.mobi, an unlocking utility by developer Chainfire, isn’t the easiest way to root your Android smartphone, but it is one of the most stable. It works on over 300 devices and provides step-by-step instructions that make the rooting process as seamless as it could be.

You will need to download the ZIP file intended for your device.

Rooting your Android device with BaiduRoot

BaiduRoot, a software utility by Beijing-based Baidu Inc., supports over 6,000 Android devices. Still, since those only include devices running Android 2.2 up to Android 4.4, it’s going to have limited use for most. However, if you’ve got an ancient phone lying around, this is a great tool for rooting and repurposing that. It’s coded in Chinese, but a crafty translator has released an English version.

BaiduRoot is one of the more straightforward rooting applications. Once you’ve downloaded it on your computer, it’s a step-by-step affair.

First, you must unzip the file. Find Baidu_Root.RAR and extract its contents (if you’re using Windows, you might need a third-party application like 7-Zip).

Next, attach the device you want to root to your computer via USB and transfer the files. Once that’s done, unplug your phone.

Now, switch to BaiduRoot:

Here’s a video showing the installation process.

Rooting with One Click Root

The One Click Root procedure is simple:

How to use Kingo Android Root

Kingo Root can install on a Windows-based computer or directly to the device you want to root. First, check to see if your device is compatible with Kingo by checking the official list. Then, grab the Kingo Android Root for Windows program, and install it. Alternatively, download the Kingo Android Root APK to your device, check the Unknown Sources box (see above), and install it.

If you’ve opted to use the Windows client, ensure to enable USB Debugging mode on your phone.

From there, usage is pretty simple:

Resources you will need after you root and how to unroot

Arguably no other mobile operating system parallels the diversity of Android OS. For this reason, there is no universal way to root your device. If the above options fail, do not fret. There is likely a guide on how to root your specific device available somewhere online — a few reliable resources include XDA Developers’ forum and the Android Forums.

Download Root Checker

Rooting will make your phone more vulnerable to security threats. Installing a root management app will give you more peace of mind. Normally, every app that requires rooted privileges will ask for your approval. This is where root management apps, such as Magisk Manager, come in. Magisk Manager is open-source software that allows you to manage your phone’s root permissions, granting or denying individual apps’ permission.

How to unroot your Android device

For all the benefits you can gain from rooting, you can go back to the way things were. Whichever method you attempt, always make sure you back up your data before changing your phone.

Unroot with Universal Unroot

You can easily unroot your phone with Universal Unroot. It removes root privileges in most Android devices, but it’s not perfect. Most Samsung devices are not compatible, and LG devices will be unrooted but still show as rooted after the app has worked its magic. It used to be a dollar, but it’s now free since the developers are no longer updating it. But if you’ve got an older device that’s supported, it’s a good way to be sure.

Unroot by flashing stock firmware

One of the most thorough ways to remove root access is by flashing your device with factory firmware. This method will completely wipe your phone or tablet clean of any root traces, but a word of warning: It’s not for the faint of heart.

First, download the factory image for your device to your computer. Once again, XDA is a great resource.

Next, unzip the file. You will see another zipped file — unzip that one, too. The unzipped folder should contain a bootloader image, radio, various scripts, and one more zipped file. Again, unzip that.

The next step involves installing ADB and Fastboot on your computer.

Switch back to your computer. Copy boot.img in the folder you unzipped and place it in your ADB folder, C:android-sdk.