How to Unroot the Moto X (All Versions)

Maybe you’ve gone a little too far with rooting your Moto X or perhaps you need to sell it or send it in for warranty? Regardless of the reasoning, sometimes the fun has to end and you need to just get it back to stock. Thanks to some people offloading the stock firmware files and RSD Lite (the Motorola flashing program) existing, it isn’t that tough. All you need to do is setup the adb drivers (if you haven’t already), download your firmware for your specific Moto X, and use RSD Lite to install it. Here’s a step by step tutorial on how to do unroot the Moto X.

I. Before You Begin

1. This will erase your device and set it back to stock from the factory.

2. This requires using a Windows computer.

3. Make sure the device is at least 70% charged just to be safe it doesn’t die during the process.

II. Setup ADB and the Drivers

1. Download the Motorola ABD DriversĀ and install them on your computer (if the program to flash hangs because it can’t find your device, try these drivers instead).

Motorola USB Drivers

2. Download my ADB Package and save it to your Desktop.

ADB Package

3.Ā On the Moto X, head to Settings > About Phone.

About Phone

4.Ā Keep tapping Build Number until it says you are a developer.

You are Now a Developer

5.Ā Hit back then tap on Developer Options.

Developer Options

6.Ā Turn on USB Debugging.

USB Debugging ON

7. Plug in the Moto X via USB.

8. Right-click the adb package .zip file and click Extract All.

Open Command Window Here

9. In the newly extracted folder, hold shift on the keyboard and right-click in any blank section in that folder and select Open Command Prompt Here.

ADB Package Extracted

10.Ā In the command prompt, type the following and hit enter at the end of the line:

adb reboot bootloader

11. The device will boot into bootloader mode.

III. Flash the Stock Firmware and Unroot the Moto X

1. Download the stock firmware for YOUR SPECIFIC DEVICE from this site hereĀ and save it to your Desktop. UPDATE: Unfortunately, the developer of that site has removed the stock file repository. If you can find the stock firmware elsewhere, please let me know so I can update this link for everyone else.

Screen Shot 2013-11-09 at 4.56.46 PM

2.Ā Right-click the firmware .zip file and click Extract All.

Screenshot (16)

3. In the newly extracted folder, open the .xml file by right-clicking it and selecting Open With… and choose Notepad.

Screenshot (17)

4. Inside that file, delete the following line and then click File > Save and close the file:

<step operation="getvar" var="max-download-size" />

5. Download RSD Lite and save it to your Desktop (the flashing software for Motorola Devices).

Screenshot (18)

6.Ā Right-click the RSD Lite .zip file and click Extract All.

Screenshot (19)

7. Open RSD Lite by double clicking the .exe file in that new folder.

Screenshot (20)

8. In the RSD Lite program, tap the … button on the right side and then navigate to the Desktop and choose the .xml file that you edited earlier and click OK.

Screenshot (21)

9. Click Start in the RSD Lite program and wait for it to flash your device.

Screenshot (22)

10. Once done, the device will reboot and you are back to stock!

21 thoughts on “How to Unroot the Moto X (All Versions)”

  1. But this method wont work on warranty cause you need to supply your IMEI to unlock bootloader on Motorola site,than it stay registered there so any assistance will check this info.

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  3. Can I get some help please?

    Status: Failed flashing process. 9/13 flash boot “boot.img” -> Phone returned FAIL.
    Result: FAIL

    I used the Telcel Mexico stock firmware.

    Now I canĀ“t use my Moto X…

  4. Nice! Where did you guys get the republic wireless stock image. Thats a pretty closely held item and with a locked bootloader and no recovery its been tough to get so far. Looking to get Safestrap working so i can experiment on the ROM safely.

  5. i need republic wireless stock image.
    i download above link for rw image.
    but actually that is sprint image.
    plz help me.

  6. Does doing this prevent OTAs from happening? I used this on my RW Moto X for 4.2.2 and even though they say that all phones have been updated to KitKat mine still doesn’t want to update. What’s going on?

    1. Doing this is to ALLOW you to get OTAs (since being rooted usually prevents them). Updates come in waves to devices from the manufacturers so you’ll have to simply wait until your device gets the notification (it can take quite a while frankly which is why, if you stayed rooted, you could have just flashed a custom ROM that was based on KitKat as those have been out for weeks).
      In a nutshell, if you are unrooted fully using this method, you’ll just have to wait like normal to get your updates from Motorola over the air.

    1. Thanks for pointing that out. Seems that the original developers of that site took it down recently. Unfortunately, that means you’ll have to search for the stock firmware somewhere else (I haven’t found it yet myself so it might be pretty hard to come by sadly). If you do find it, please link to it here and I’ll update the tutorial for others. Thanks again!

    1. Try again and possibly re download the stock firmware as it might have been corrupted during download. Also make sure you are flashing the correct firmware for you specific version. Good luck!

  7. i edited the xml file accordingly, but when i try to load the xml file, it gives me the “Please check input file. Either XML format is wrong or image files associated with it are missing.” error.

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