How to Root the Huawei Mate 9

Huawei has launched the successor of the Mate 8 this month and the new phone is called the Huawei Mate 9 as we all thought. The phone packs some of the really good specifications that include a 5.9″ inch LCD screen, 64GB internal memory, 4GB of RAM, and a 20MP camera.

On the software side, the phone runs the latest and greatest Android 7.0 Nougat on-board which is the latest version of the Android OS available for the public. While you can definitely enjoy some of the great features of Android 7.0 on this phone as it runs this version of Android, there’re still many more features that can be added to it if you root it. Rooting your Huawei Mate 9 allows you to load the root-only apps, custom kernels, custom ROMs, and so on, on the phone. Not only that but you can also remove the existing stuff such as stock apps that you don’t like on the phone.

Gaining root on the Huawei Mate 9 is as easy as unlocking the bootloader, flashing a recovery, and then flashing Superuser. The guide below covers all these things so it’s even easier for you to root your Huawei Mate 9 and get some cool stuff running on it.

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. You should have set up ADB on your PC before doing this procedure.
3. Since this’ll unlock the bootloader, all the data stored on your device will be erased. So, please backup everything that you wish to preserve or it’ll be deleted forever.
4. This should also flash a custom recovery on your device.
5. This procedure should work for the following models of the device: MHA-L29XXX, MHA-L09XXX, MHA-AL00XXX, and MHA-TL01XXX. If yours isn’t any of these, then please don’t do this procedure or you’ll end-up bricking your device.

How to Root the Huawei Mate 9

To root the device, you’ll first unlock the bootloader, flash a custom recovery, and then flash SuperSU which will help you gain root on your system. Here’s how to do that all one by one:

Downloading Required Files

1. Download the following files from the first post of this thread.
   a) TWRP Recovery
   b) Phh’s Superuser

Unlocking the Bootloader on the Huawei Mate 9

1. Head to Menu > Settings > About phone on your device and tap on Build number for 10 times and it’ll say you’re a developer. It has just unlocked the developer menu for you.
2. Head to the newly unlocked menu at Menu > Settings > Developer options and turn on OEM unlock.
3. Head to Menu > Settings > Developer options and enable USB debugging.
4. Plug in your device to your PC using a USB cable.
5. Open a web browser on your PC and head over to the Huawei’s Bootloader Unlock page and enter in all the information it asks for and submit the form. It’ll send an unlock code to your email that you can use to unlock the bootloader on your device. When you receive the code, do the following steps.
6. Open the ADB folder located in the C:/ drive of your PC and hold down Shift on your keyboard and right-click anywhere on your screen and select Open command window here. It’ll open a command prompt window for you to type in the ADB commands.
7. Type in the following command into the command prompt window and hit Enter:
   adb reboot bootloader
8. It’ll reboot your device into the bootloader mode.
9. Type in the following command into the command prompt window and press Enter. Make sure to replace CODE with the actual unlock code you’ve received from Huawei.
   fastboot oem unlock CODE
10. Follow the on-screen instructions to unlock the bootloader on your device.
11. When it’s all done, type in the following command to reboot your device:
    fastboot reboot

The bootloader on your Huawei Mate 9 should now be unlocked. You can now flash a custom recovery and then flash Superuser to root your device. Here’s how to do that:

Flashing a Custom Recovery on the Huawei Mate 9

1. Head to Menu > Settings > About phone on your device and tap on Build number for 10 times to unlock the developer menu. It’ll say you’re a developer when the menu’s been unlocked.
2. Head to Menu > Settings > Developer options and turn on USB debugging.
3. Head to Menu > Settings > Developer options and enable OEM unlock.
4. Plug in your device to your PC using a USB cable.
5. Open the ADB folder and hold down Shift and right-click anywhere on the screen and select Open command window here to open a command prompt window in the ADB directory.
6. Type in the following command into the command prompt window and hit Enter:
   adb reboot bootloader
7. Your device should reboot into the bootloader mode.
8. Type in the following command into the command prompt window and press Enter. Make sure to replace twrp.img with the actual name of the recovery image you have downloaded to your PC.
   fastboot flash recovery twrp.img
9. Wait for it to flash TWRP Recovery on your device.
10. When it’s done flashing recovery, reboot your device by typing in the following command into the command prompt window and pressing Enter:
    fastboot reboot

Your device should reboot and you now have a working custom recovery on your device.

Now that your bootloader’s unlocked and you have a custom recovery, here’s how to gain root access on your Huawei Mate 9:

Rooting the Huawei Mate 9

1. Connect your device to your PC using a USB cable.
2. Copy Phh’s Superuser .zip from your desktop over to the external SD card storage on your device.
3. When Superuser’s copied, disconnect your device from your PC.
4. Turn off your device.
5. Reboot your device into the recovery mode by pressing and holding down Volume Up and Power buttons together for a few seconds.
6. Tap on Install in the recovery menu.
7. Navigate to your external SD card storage and find and select Superuser .zip to be installed on your device.
8. Tap on Swipe to Confirm Flash to begin flashing Superuser on your device.
9. When it’s done flashing Superuser, reboot your device by tapping on Reboot followed by System in the recovery menu.

Congratulations, your Huawei Mate 9 is now rooted.

Now that you have root and a custom recovery on your device, go ahead and load up a custom ROM on your device using our how to load a custom ROM on an Android device guide.

Also, check out our huge custom ROMs repository to find all the custom ROMs that you can flash on your device.

Let us know how this worked for you!