How to Root the Motorola Moto X (2014)

Successor to the last year’s Moto X, the Moto X 2014 Edition brings with it a host of new features and hardware upgrades that will surely lure you to buy this beast. If you’ve already got one for yourself, you might want to root it. Rooting will let you unlock the true potential of your device and our guide below should help you do just that.

Rooting is the process of gaining administrative rights on your Android device.  Once we root our Android device, we can then make changes to it to customize it well beyond what it normally can do.

Once you have root access on your Motorola Moto X (2014), you’ll be able to:

• Remove apps that were preinstalled by your carrier/manufacturer from your device.
• Free up storage space (because of the above benefit).
• Increase battery life (apps that might have been running constantly can be removed).
• Increase performance (after removing apps that are always running, the device will be less bogged down and run smoother).
• Update to a new version of Android (by flashing a custom recovery/ROM, see the end of this procedure for more info on that).
• Tons of other customizations when you use your new found administrative rights to flash a custom ROM (again, see the end of this procedure for more info on that).

Interested? Here’s how to root your Motorola Moto X (2014):

I. Before You Begin

1. This will void the warranty of your device. We won’t be held responsible if you end-up bricking or damaging your device. Do it at your own risk.

2. This is confirmed to be working on XT1095 variant of the device.

3. You must have unlocked your bootloader for this procedure to work. You can unlock your bootloader from the official Motorola website.

4. This only works on Windows based PCs.

5. This should flash a custom recovery as well.

II. Downloading Required Files

1. Download Root Tool and save it to your desktop.

Root Tool (Download link’s available in the first post)

III. Rooting the Motorola Moto X (2014)

1. Extract files from Root Tool to your desktop by right-clicking on it and selecting Extract here.

2. Enable USB debugging on your device by heading to Menu > Settings > Developer options > USB debugging.

3. Plug in your device to your PC using the USB cable.

4. Double-click on Root Tool .bat file that you just extracted from the archive. It’ll launch.

5. Press 1 and hit Enter. It’ll push the required SuperSU files to your device.

6. When it’s done, press 2 and hit Enter. It’ll flash CWM Recovery on your device and reboot into the same.

7. When in recovery, select install zip from sdcard followed by choose zip from sdcard.

8. Choose SuperSU .zip to be flashed on your device.

9. It should begin flashing the selected .zip file on your device.

10. When it’s done, select reboot system now and your device should reboot.

11. You’re all set!

Excellent! Your Motorola Moto X (2014) is now rooted and has a custom recovery. You can now install root-only apps, flash custom ROMs, and do a lot of things on your device that you weren’t able to do because of no root-access. Enjoy!

You can click here to find all of the Motorola Moto X (2014) How To’s.

You can also find all of the Motorola Moto X (2014) ROMs we have here.