How to Root the Motorola Moto G4 & Moto G4 Plus

Two new phones have recently been launched in the G series phones by Motorola and these new phones are called – Moto G4 and Moto G4 Plus – successor to the last year’s G series phone.

Motorola’s Moto G series phone have been successful as they offer great features at a price that everybody can afford. With these phones, you get the latest version of Android and most of the times timely updates from the manufacturer, a good set of hardware, and everything else you expect from an Android phone nowadays.

However great an Android phone is, if it isn’t rooted, it isn’t unlocked to its maximum potential. When you root your phone, you allow yourself to be the admin of the phone who has access to modify everything on the phone. From being able to remove stock apps to installing a custom ROM, you can get to do all these when your phone is rooted.

Rooting the Motorola Moto G4 and Moto G4 Plus is now possible, all thanks to Motorola allowing the bootloader to be unlocked on the phones and Teamwin and Chainfire for their root files.

So, if you’ve got one of these phones and you wish to root it, the guide below is all you need:

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 procedure uses steps for ADB on Windows. If you’re on Mac or Linux, the steps will slightly vary for you.
3. You should have ADB USB drivers installed on your Windows PC. Install the drivers if they aren’t already.
4. This should erase all the data stored on your device. So, please go ahead and backup everything that you wish to keep.
5. This should also flash a custom recovery on your device.
6. This should work for both Moto G4 and Moto G4 Plus.

How to Root the Motorola Moto G4 & Moto G4 Plus

To root the device, you’ll first unlock the bootloader, flash TWRP Recovery, and then flash SuperSU to obtain root. Here’s how to do that all:

Downloading Required Files

1. Download Fastboot and save it to your desktop.
   Fastboot
2. Download TWRP Recovery and save it to your desktop.
   TWRP Recovery
3. Download SuperSU and save it to your desktop.
   SuperSU

Unlocking the Bootloader on the Motorola Moto G4 & Moto G4 Plus

1. Unzip files from Fastboot over to your desktop by right-clicking on the archive and selecting Extract here.
   
2. Head to Menu > Settings > About phone on your device and tap on Build number for 7-8 times and it’ll say you’re a developer. It is to unlock the developer menu on your device.
3. Head to the newly unlocked menu at Menu > Settings > Developer options and turn on USB debugging.
4. Head to Menu > Settings > Developer options and turn on OEM unlock.
5. Plug in your device to your PC using a USB cable.
6. Open a command prompt window on your desktop by holding down Shift and right-clicking anywhere on the screen and selecting Open command window here.
   
7. Type in the following command into the command prompt window and hit Enter:
   adb reboot bootloader


8. Your device should reboot into the bootloader mode.
9. Type in the following command into the command prompt window and press Enter:
   fastboot devices


10. Make sure your device appears in the list. If it does, you’re good to go. If it doesn’t, you need to check and re-install your drivers.
11. Next up, type in the following command into the command prompt window and hit Enter:
    fastboot oem get_unlock_data


12. You’ll get a long string of text on your screen. Copy it all excluding the <bootloader> part.
13. Head over to the Motorola Bootloader Unlock website and create a new account if you don’t already have one.
14. Go through the bootloader unlock process on the website and at one point it’ll ask you to input a code. The code that you’re supposed to input is the one that you’ve copied to your clipboard in the previous steps.
15. Submit the code and Motorola will send an unlock code to your email address. Note down the unlock code that you receive from the company.
16. Get back to the command prompt window and type in the following command and press Enter. Make sure to replace CODE with the unlock code you’ve received from Motorola.
    fastboot oem unlock CODE


17. It should begin unlocking the bootloader on your device. Wait for it to do that.
18. When it’s done unlocking the bootloader, reboot your device by typing in the following command into the command prompt window and hitting Enter:
    fastboot reboot


19. Your device should reboot.

The bootloader on your Motorola Moto G4 or Moto G4 Plus should now be unlocked, and you can now go ahead and flash a custom recovery on your device using the following steps:

Flashing a Custom Recovery on the Motorola Moto G4 & Moto G4 Plus

1. Head to Menu > Settings > About phone on your device and tap on Build number for 7-8 times and it’ll say you’re a developer. It’ll unlock the developer menu for you.
2. Head to Menu > Settings > Developer options and enable USB debugging.
3. Plug in your device to your PC using a USB cable.
4. Open a command prompt window on your desktop by holding down Shift and right-clicking anywhere on the screen and selecting Open command window here.
   
5. When the command prompt window opens, type in the following command and press Enter:
   adb reboot bootloader


6. It’ll reboot your device into the bootloader mode.
7. 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’ve downloaded to your PC.
   fastboot flash recovery twrp.img


8. Wait for it to flash TWRP Recovery on your device.
9. When it’s done flashing a recovery, reboot your device by typing in the following command into the command prompt window and pressing Enter:
   fastboot reboot


10. Your device should reboot.

TWRP Recovery was successfully flashed on your Motorola Moto G4 or Moto G4 Plus. Here’s how you can now root your device:

Rooting the Motorola Moto G4 & Moto G4 Plus

1. Plug in your device to your PC using a USB cable.
2. Copy SuperSU .zip from your desktop over to the internal SD card storage on your device. It’s recommended to place the file in the root directory so it’s easily accessible.
3. When SuperSU’s copied, disconnect your device from your PC.
4. Power down your device.
5. Power up your device by holding down Volume DOWN and Power buttons together.
6. Your device should reboot into the TWRP Recovery mode.
7. Tap on Install in the recovery mode.
8. Navigate to your internal SD card storage and find and select SuperSU .zip to be installed on your device.
9. Tap on Swipe to Confirm Flash to flash the SuperSU file.
10. When it’s done flashing SuperSU, reboot your device by tapping Reboot followed by System in the recovery menu.
11. Your device should reboot.

And your Motorola Moto G4 or Moto G4 Plus should now be rooted!

You can download and install the Root Checker app on your device to check if your device is properly rooted.

Now that you’re rooted and have a custom recovery on your device, you should go ahead and install a custom ROM on your device to take a great advantage of root and a custom recovery on your device. You can also check out our custom ROMs repository to see all the available ROMs for your device.

Let us know how this procedure worked for you in the comments below!