How to Root the OnePlus Two (Video)
After all the hype the OnePlus One caused and the, not particularly large, but damn-loyal fanbase they achieved, they finally just launched a successor: the OnePlus Two.
Just like with the OnePlus One the idea was to put higher end specs in a device while keeping the price tag a few hundred dollars shy of the competitors (and just like the last time, what better way to create as much hype as possible than with the same invite-only system of purchasing and giveaways to gain invites), the OnePlus Two followed suit.
But while the hardware is top-notch on the OnePlus Two, the software, well, isn’t. Instead of the popular third-party OS CyanogenMod (which sits on top of Android), they went with their own proprietary Oxygen OS (that also sits on top of Android).
And, as usual with most manufacturers, the custom skin UI they went with isn’t quite as smooth as the old Cyanogen OS (or even pure Android). So, what can a new OnePlus Two user do? Well, you can root it.
Rooting is the process of gaining administrative rights on a device which allows you to then change system files to your heart’s content. From removing bloatware apps that the manufacturer put on the device that you never use, to overclocking the processor, to, yes, changing the entire OS or custom UI.
Even though it might sound a little daunting, it’s actually quite easy (and even easy to undo) so if any of the above sounds good to you, here’s how to root the OnePlus Two, flash a custom recovery, and even flash a custom ROM –a zipped file with a new custom OS that you can change as many times as you want until you find one you love.
I. Before You Begin
1. This could void the warranty of your device. We won’t be held responsible for anything that happens from doing this tutorial so please proceed at your own risk.
2. This should erase the data stored on your device. So, please backup anything that you feel is important.
3. This should also flash a custom recovery on your device.
4. You should only try this on a OnePlus 2. OnePlus One users should head here to root their device.
How to Root the OnePlus 2
To root the device, you’ll first unlock the bootloader and flash a custom recovery on it, and then flash the SuperSU package to gain access to root. Here’s how:
II. Downloading Required Files
1. Download the folder in zip format I put together with all the necessary files here and save it to your desktop.
2. Extract the contents to your desktop.
III. Installing ADB Drivers on Your PC or Mac
To get ADB and Fastboot working (things we need to be able to communicate with the phone from our computer), head to my new How To Setup ADB/Fastboot Tutorial. This will show you how to set it all up on Windows or Mac (don’t worry it’s quick and easy). Once done with that, return here to this tutorial to continue.
After you have done that, copy the SuperSU.zip and recovery.img files from that folder into the C:/adb folder that you should now have on your computer after doing the ADB tutorial above (they need to be in the same folder as adb.exe and fastboot.exe).
III. Unlocking the Bootloader on the OnePlus 2
1. On the phone, head to Menu > Settings > About phone and tap on Build number for 7-8 times and it’ll say you’re a developer. The developer options menu should now be unlocked on your device.
2. Head to Menu > Settings > Developer options on your device and turn on USB debugging and OEM unlocking.
3. Connect your device to your PC using a USB cable.
4. You will get a prompt asking if you’d like to allow USB debugging on your device. Check off the Always allow from this computer box and tap on OK.
5. Launch a Command Prompt Window inside the Fastboot folder inside the folder you just extracted eariler. To do that, hold down Shift on your keyboard and right-click anywhere inside the Fastboot folder and select Open command window here.
6. Type in the following command into the Command Prompt Window and press Enter:
adb reboot bootloader
7. Your device should reboot into bootloader mode.
8. Type in the following command and hit Enter:
fastboot oem unlock
9. It should unlock the bootloader on your device.
10. Wait for it to unlock your bootloader.
12. Your device should automatically reboot when the bootloader is unlocked.
IV. Flashing a Custom Recovery on the OnePlus 2
1. Once the phone reboots, go through the normal setup procedure until you can get back to the home screen.
2. On the phone, head to Menu > Settings > About phone and tap on Build number for 7-8 times and it’ll say you’re a developer. The developer options menu should now be unlocked on your device.
3. Head to Menu > Settings > Developer options on your device and turn on USB debugging and OEM unlocking.
4. In the command prompt from before on the computer, type in the following command and hit enter:
adb push SuperSU.zip /sdcard/SuperSU.zip
adb reboot recovery
adb reboot bootloader
5. Once it reboots into bootloader mode again, type in the following command and hit enter:
fastboot flash recovery recovery.img
7. Wait for it to flash TWRP Recovery on your device.
8. When it’s done flashing TWRP Recovery, reboot your device manually into recovery mode by holding down Volume Down and Power until the logo appears, then release the power button but keep holding the volume down button until you see TWRP’s recovery.
V. Rooting the OnePlus 2 Using TWRP and SuperSU
1 Once in recovery mode, tap Backup and swipe to confirm. This will create a backup of the current stock ROM just in case you want to unroot later easily or if something goes wrong.
2 When that finishes, tap Back.
3. Now, tap on Install.
4. Select SuperSU .zip to be installed on your device.
5. Tap on Swipe to Confirm Flash to install SuperSU on your device.
6. Wait for TWRP to install SuperSU.
7. When it’s done installing, reboot your device by selecting Reboot followed by System.
8. Your device should reboot.
Now you can head to my How to Flash a Custom ROM tutorial and follow that to perform a backup of your entire system (very handy later on) and flash custom ROMs found in my ROM repository.
Let me know if this worked for you in the comments below!
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this is from my phone,. something is not right
That’s so weird. Mine had it no problem. Did you check the one plus forums and see if anything is there about some phones not having the oem unlock in there?
Also can you check what version of Android you are on in settings > about?
I dont have an OEM unlock option 🙁
Seems some people don’t have that option. If you at least have USB Debugging try with just that and see if it works. Let me know if it does.
I can’t get to the adb tutorial site it keeps circling back to how to root the oneplus 2 site
Thanks I just fixed the link. Try it now.
HI, once i have unlocked the bootloader and flashed the device i was not able to find android devices to update driver to move on to the fourth step. Any help would be appreciated
What step are you stuck at exactly? You’ve already unlocked the bootloader and flashed a custom recovery? Where are you getting stuck then?
TWRP doesn’t appear for me. it gave me the option to install from sd and i found superSU.zip but the installation failed. help?
It won’t work without TWRP so you need to get that to flash and stick.
Hey hello thanks for all the help, i was stuck on the fast boot thing because it never gave me the option on the phone i just skipped and installed the image, SUper SU and really worked like a charm thumbs up. thanks
Thanks for reporting it worked Andrew!
Does this work with the ONE A2003?
Not sure what version I had when I did it and I don’t have it anymore so can’t say. Best bet would be to try it and see. Worst case it’ll just not work but won’t hurt the phone.
Hi.
I am not totally sure, if you will get your stuff back after you rooted it.
If I create a recovery, or a safe, can I use that afterwards?
Or, will it wipe it for good?
It’ll erase everything so I’d recommend backing photos and everything up before beginning is all.
Dear I want download Samsung gear rom but rom is not downloading please help me
Sorry you need to check with the developer then as he controls the download.
how? I installed the recovery and this not downloading please explain that
I watched your full video from youtube and I learned a lot of things but the rom is not working
if you have any advise for me please send to my
Email; h.qani2012@gmail.com
Great tutorial, thanks for the info. I have a quick question, if I did a backup of everything on my phone when should I restore this? before which step?
What type of backup did you do? I usually just refer to saving photos to Google Photos or to another drive (like a computer) and make sure your contacts are synced, etc. You would just restore all of that after you are rooted and all set.
I did an adb backup
Excellent tutorial. Just finished and now I have root access!!
Glad it worked out and thanks for reporting that it worked!
thank you…. thank you so much….
after following your tutorials and video i easily rooted my 1+2……
Aw you are very welcome! Enjoy it!
I rooted my phone today using help from One plus youtube channel. But after that, everything s good except that FILES app is not working. When i try to open FILES app, it open but with everything just plain blank. no text nothing. its blind. i clear cache again and again but it still the same. How to make it normal again, what should i do now? Help plz and reply. I’m asking for help for 2nd time but no one is answering 🙁
Hello this is your first time asking for help on my site…
As for being able to help you however there is no way I can. I have no idea what you did since you used someone else’s tutorial and i wasnt watching you so not sure where you messed up or what instructions they gave you incorrectly.
You should unroot the phone which you can do so by searching my site for “unroot oneplus 2” and get back to stock and see if that fixes it then you can try and reroot using this tutorial if that works. If returning to stock doesnt help then you need to contact OnePlus support like normal.
Good luck!
Bro, i did unroot by your method and it is all good. Working everything fine. Now when i put the command in cmd as adb devices, it gives some code and says UNAUTHORIZED. now what should i do?
when entering fastboot oem unlock it finished in 0.003s but my phone still remains in Fastboot Mode and not asking “Unlock will erase user data”. what should i do?
That means it is already unlocked, just continue.
if i continue and put the next command to install fastboot push supersu code, it says like device not connected.
Post a screen shot here and let me see exactly what it said and what you typed etc. and I’ll try and help.
@TheUnlockr:disqus :Does the fingerprint scanner work after rooting the device?
Yup! Rooting doesn’t affect the hardware like that, it works fine.
Hi, I’ve followed your tutorial up to the second last step and I can’t get past it. Although I’ve followed all of your instructions to the word, it seems that I cannot boot into TWRP; for what reason, I cannot discern. However, upon using the “fastboot boot recovery.img” command it prints out the following code:
C:Android>fastboot boot recovery.img
downloading ‘boot.img’…
OKAY [ 0.592s]
booting…
FAILED (remote: dtb not found)
finished. total time: 0.663s
Although I gather that remote (in “FAILED (remote: dtb not found)”) must mean there is something wrong with files on the phone, I have no idea as to what “dtb” could stand for. I would assume this has to do with TWRP, but I have tried the other compatible versions of TWRP, to no avail.
In any case, thanks for the clear instructions 🙂
Whoops, found the problem; it was with OOS3 (Oxygen OS). I had the community beta version of OOS3 installed and it turns out it’s incompatible with all the current versions of twrp. So I guess that’s a warning for everyone who decides to root their phone with a beta version of OOS3 installed: Save yourself an afternoon and don’t try.
Although I suppose I should have know, with the word “beta” in front of the release and everything. Woops.
Ha, no worries glad you figured it out though!
C:WINDOWSsystem32>fastboot flash recovery C://recovery.img
target reported max download size of 536870912 bytes
sending ‘recovery’ (25956 KB)…
OKAY [ 0.587s]
writing ‘recovery’…
OKAY [ 0.211s]
finished. total time: 0.805s
After doing this i try to reboot my phone into recovery mode but only the logo page gets displayed.please help
Did you make sure to reboot it into recovery before bootloader in step 4? Then did you flash it in step 5 then reboot manually from bootloader into recovery?
Reason is recovery can be overwritten by rebooting if you reboot normally.
Hi. After installing the SuperSU via TWRP, my phone was stuck in a boot loop. I cannot reboot into my homescreen.
1) My bootloader is perfectly unlocked
2) I flashed the TWRP recovery image from official TWRP website to get the latest version (V3.0.2-2
3) I used the SuperSU.zip you provided here, flashed it via the TWRP, and automatically rebooted after that.
4) Stuck in the bootloop.
Hi there i’m having a issue I have completed all steps but when my phone restarts I’m stuck at the loading screen with the balls spinning round each other I have retried the process three times always with the same result
Try booting back into recovery and wipe data then flash SuperSU etc. Also what version of Android are you on?
I’m having the same issue. I tried wiping data then flashing supersu but still gets stuck on the spinning balls :/ Running the latest version of oxygen os
What version of Android are you on?
i am also stuck with the same issue kindly help.
What version of Android are you on?
Hey David! I am having an issue: I followed you throughout the video until the part where you hold volume down and power. I do that but the only thing I get on my screen is the OnePlus logo. The twrp custom recovery never appears. Any tips and ideas why this might happen?
Thanks!
Can you post a screenshot of all the things you typed into command prompt right before that (redo them if necessary)?
Hello David I did all your steps and doesn’t booting up in twrp (stuck in OP logo when try to boot in twrp). It normally boot up again when restarting
You need to manually reboot into recovery. Check the video and other people’s comments for help.
Sir it doesn’t help, side loaded OOS 2.2.0 now , is that work with ur tutorial plz reply sir very urgent
rooted my s7 snapdragon once i got to the super su part the file would open then close right away once my device booted up there was no supersu and now it keeps restarting any tips?
Is this rooting tutorial compatible with the OnePlus 2’s current/newest version of oxygen os 3.6.1(Android version 6.0.1)? Additionally, could the newest versions of TWRP and SuperSU work with this tutorial?