We have provided a lot of coverage on this channel related to all things Android Root and In fact we have got an entire menu category dedicated to just that topic alone which you can find on this site. However he number one question, I get asked on pretty much every single one of these Android Root posts is how do you update your phone once it's Rooted. That's because once your phone is Rooted you can't just simply do a wireless over-the-air system update, whenever a new one rolls around. Because phones contain what's called a pre-OTA block check which among other things checks if your phone is Rooted and if it is, it'll block the update from happening.
It is one of the bigger downsides to having a Rooted phone. But the good news is that you can still update your phone manually with a little bit of know-how.
So consider this post your one-stop solution for
How to update a Rooted phone
And for the most part if you've Rooted your device using Magisk, then this process should work for almost any device. That said, obviously take your precautions with this. Possibly even do a system backup prior just in case but with that being said, let's dive in now.
Also Read: 10 Reasons you should Root Your Phone
The first thing to point out is that there are actually a few methods for updating a Rooted phone but I'm going to be explaining the one that I personally use, as I find it to be not only the most universal but also the most reliable. As well as that if you've already got a Rooted device, then I'm going to assume you also already have ADB set up and ready to go on your computer, as well as USB debugging on your phone. However if you don't have either setup, then you can literally read of our other how to Root device posts and they'll all explain these parts of the process.
Step 1: Download the Latest Factory and OTA Images for your device
For this method, you'll need to have access to the latest factory and OTA images for your device of choice. For Google Pixel devices, this is made incredibly easy because Google uploads all of these files to a developer's page every time there's a new update out. But if you're not using a Pixel phone, then you'll need to locate these files elsewhere. Generally speaking unless your phone is really niche you should just be able to perform a quick Google search with your device name followed by the terms “OTA image files or factory image files” and then you should be able to find the files that you're looking for. Often there will be a friendly user uploading these files for download over on XDA or sometimes you'll be able to find them on a site like needrom.com.
But whichever website you're using, just be careful to ensure that the files you're downloading match your specific device and region. As using the wrong files may result in some features becoming broken.
So for the Pixel 6 which will be the device that I'm using for this demonstration, like I said on my computer I can just navigate first to the factory images page and find the latest factory image file under the Pixel 6 section and click on link to download it.
Then I can navigate to the full OTA images page and again find and download the latest OTA files and click to download. These will both be pretty massive files around a couple of gigabytes each, but once they've completed downloading;
We want to then first locate the factory Zip file which will be the one with the OTA in the name.
Double click that to extract it and then double click this other Zip file called image-blah blah blah
Step 2: Disable DM Verity Check
Now if you're running Android 12 on your Rooted device, then prior to one of the recent Magisk updates, you would have needed to disable what's called DM Verity Check via ADB using the VB Met update image file, not only when you first Rooted your device but also each time you wanted to update your phone as well.
But if you're running version 24 or later of Magisk, then you don't need to do this process anymore.
Step 3: Update your Phone OS
With that being said with this image zip file now opened,
We now need to plug our phone into our computer
Then transfer this file called boot.image somewhere we'll remember on our phone
(I'm just going to put mine in the documents folder via Android file transfer)
With that done we now want to find that OTA zip file we downloaded which is the one with OTA in the file name and then to make life easier for everyone, we're going to rename it to simply OTA.zip.
Then we'll move that file to that platform tools folder sitting on our desktop.
With our device still plugged in, we now need to open up a command prompt application which for me on a Mac is going to be the terminal application but use whichever one you have access to
Then with it open we're going to type the following
cd <space> desktop and then <enter> And then
cd <space> platform <dash> tools and then <enter>
(Now just to save me from having to repeat myself a thousand times because I'm using a Mac for this demonstration, anytime I type an ADB command, I'll need to add a dot and a slash before the word ADB. So I'll keep saying it like that because that's what I'm doing. But if you're using a Windows PC, then you can just type ADB without the dot or slash)
Okay so from here,Type
dot slash ADB <space> reboot <space> recovery and then hit <enter>
This will switch our phone off and for some devices, it'll go straight into recovery mode. But for others, you may see this icon of a robot Android lying down and if you do, you'll need to
Hold the power button and press volume up and then you should enter recovery mode
Then we want to use the Volume Keys on our phone to navigate to the Apply Update from ADB option
Then hit the Power button to select it
Then on our computer we'll type the following command
dot slash ADB <space> side load <space> OTA dot zip and with that typed out we can hit <enter>
This will now go through the process of updating our phone which it will do in two steps and this can take quite some time, somewhere between five to ten minutes. Sometimes even longer depending on the update and keep in mind, on the rare occasion,
I've actually had the update fail before completing and the first time this happened I actually didn't realize it and so assuming it was complete, I rebooted my device only for it to go into a Bootloop
Luckily I just needed to reboot into recovery mode again and apply the update once more and then it did successfully update. So keep that in mind.
For some reason that seems to be something that can happen from time to time with the update not completing. So just keep trying until it does successfully complete.
Once the OTA completes, we will be back in recovery mode and we can now select the reboot to system now option.
Our phone will now reboot.
Just give your phone a little bit of time to fully update before moving on to the next step.
Step 4: Reroot your Phone
All right with that done and our phone fully updated, we will actually no longer be Rooted, meaning we need to once more Root our device.
To do this,
Open the Magisk application
Then tap on the install button
Then choose the select and patch a file option
Then navigate to that boot.image file you transferred to your device earlier
(I moved mine to the documents folder so I'll select that)
Then tap on let's go.
Magisk manager will now go ahead and create a patched version of this boot image file and store it in the downloads folder on our phone
So back on our computer, we then want to reopen Android file transfer or just the file explorer on a windows device
Find that newly created patched boot image file
Once we've found it, we then want to transfer that file which should be called Magisk underscore patch then some randomnumbers.img To the platform tools folder on our desktop
Then with out of our still plugged in we now want to use our command prompt application once more, but this time launch our phone into Fastboot mode which we can do so by typing
dot slash ADB <space> reboot <space> bootloader
Then hit <enter> once our phone is booted into Fastboot mode
There are one of two options here, we can either directly flash the Magisk patched boot image file if we're really confident in what we're doing.
But the safer approach is to just temporarily boot our device via that patch boot image file which will allow us to verify that everything is working as expected. But if it's not, it's just temporary and it will undo itself the next time we reboot.
To do this, we're going to type the following
dot Fastboot or just Fastboot on a windows machine then <space> boot <space>
Then we want to drag and drop the Magisk underscore patched image file directly from our platform tools folder to where our cursor is.
Once that's completed, we can then hit <enter>
Once your device boots back up, you will in fact be Rooted once more however only temporarily. So to complete the job and make sure it stays Rooted, we'll need to reopen the Magisk manager application
Ttap on install
Then direct install
Then Let's Go
We can then wait for the process to complete and once it has, we can then tap on Reboot.
If all has gone according to plan, your phone will now be both updated to the latest software version and it'll still be Rooted.
Now this is obviously a downside to having a Rooted phone, however if you've Rooted your phone using Magisk in the past, then this process is honestly very much the same and now you can just Bookmark this post, so that anytime you need to update your phone, you just open this one up follow along and you're done each month.
It only takes me about 20 minutes or so to complete the process and part of that time is spent actually downloading the files and waiting for the OTA update to complete, but aside from that it's actually relatively simple and fast.
So that's it, if you found this post helpful then a share this post with your friends as well who might learn something new. Thank you all very much for reading and do check out our other similar posts as well.
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