How to Flash a Custom Recovery Image on LG G4 (General guide)

by Popa Loredana · July 24, 2015

As you know, every phone ships with stock recovery software and your LG G4 is no exception to that. It is true that stock recoveries vary slightly between phone makers, but in all cases they let you do the very same things: you can manually flash the latest official updates, they allow external tools from a microSD card to run functions on the handset and can be also used to clear your phone’s cache.

This is indeed very limited, but there is something else that might help you. If you have already decided that your LG G4 needs a custom recovery, during this tutorial, I will explain you how to install it and what popular solutions you have to choose for your device.

Custom recoveries are there to replace the limited stock ones, adding all sorts of functionality to your LG G4. To be more precise, you can use them for creating and restoring backup images (if you don’t already know, a backup image makes a copy of all your phone settings, application and app data, ideal in all those cases when you don’t want to take any chances while performing an unofficial operation and not only), for rooting operations, for flashing custom ROMs.

And above all these, this is your chance to enjoy a more useful interface for the recovery which can come with various touch capabilities, not to mention the possibility to easily communicate with adb on a computer for debugging and all the other developer-type actions that you might need to apply.

So, there is no doubt that custom recoveries let you do various things that the manufacturer may not want you to perform, but what should you choose? Well, I can tell you from the start that ClockworkMod (also known as simply CWM) and Team Win’s Recovery Project (shortened to TWRP) are the best choices of the moment, both having the essential features that you are probably looking for.

As of writing this post, I must warn you of the fact there’s only the TWRP recovery for your LG G4, but this method should work perfectly when more CWM/TWRP recovery versions become available in the near future, so what are you waiting for?

For the start, take a full backup of your data, unlock the bootloader of your smartphone and enable the USB Debugging option (to do that, you have to go to Settings > About phone> Software info, and tap Build number 7 times until you see “You are now a developer”; then, go back to Settings screen, Tap Developer options, then enable USB debugging). Also verify the battery percentage and on your PC, disable the security protection because as they might interfere with the flashing operation. Also make sure that you have the appropriate USB drivers for your LG G4 and that Android SDK must be installed on your computer.

How to Flash a Custom Recovery on your LG G4 (General guide):

Find the download the recovery image for your LG G4 version;
Do not hesitate to download and open ES File Explorer;
It’s time to go to your Download folder and find the image zip file you downloaded;
Then, select the image zip file;
Select “Extract” at bottom-left;
Tap OK;
This will extract the recovery image file to auto-created folder in your Download folder;
Install and open Flashify app on Play Store;
Do not forget to hit “Grant” when Superuser request window pops up then choose “Recovery image”;
Then, go to “Choose a file” and select this option;
Select the new folder that was created when you unzipped the image zip file earlier;
Choose the image file;
Flash recovery;
At the end, choose “Reboot now” and enjoy your CWM or TWRP recovery.