How to Root OnePlus 6

by Mike Blass · June 5, 2018

The OnePlus 6 is the latest flagship device from OnePlus, released just in the month of May. Something tells me that this is the handset that also sits in your pocket, so I bet that you only want to best and rooting already crosses your mind. Rooting means gaining root access to your device. When you take your OnePlus 6 phone out of the box, while there are plenty of settings you can tweak, but you can only alter what the manufacturer allows you to.

Rooting goes beyond that and even if it voids your warranty and that some might fear that malware can easily breach your mobile security, I am sure that it is still totally worth it for all the goodies you get access to. You can forget all about that pesky bloatware and install incompatible apps, you don’t have to wait around for manufacturers and carriers for updates, but you take control over that, improve battery life and speed and get the chance to back up every byte on your device. Who doesn’t want such advantages?

Rooting the OnePlus 6 is a fairly easy process – you’ll have to use ADB to unlock the bootloader, and then flashing TWRP for recovery, while Magisk is the ideal method for the actual rooting procedure.

Prepare to root your device:

Begin by installing ADB tools and the OnePlus USB drivers on your PC;
You also need to go to Settings > About Phone > tap Build Number 7 times, until Developer Mode is confirmed as being activated;
Now, go to Settings > Developer Options and enable both USB Debugging and OEM Unlocking. Also enable “Advanced Reboot”;
Unlocking the bootloader is a must if you want to root your device;
Make sure the device is at least 60% charged.
Now, as I have told you from the start, you will have to rely on a patched boot image and Magisk to achieve root access;
However, remember that this operation will void your warranty and it could brick your handset. No one but you will be responsible, should it come to that.

Detailed procedure:

Download the patched boot image for your OnePlus 6 smartphone;
Move the downloaded image to the ADB installation folder;
Power off your handset;
Press and hold the Volume Up and Power button together on your OnePlus 5 until it boots into fastboot mode;
Connect your phone to the computer and run the ADB command interface. To be more precise, go to the ADB installation folder on your PC;
Up next, type in cmd in the address bar and hit enter to open a command prompt window in the folder;
Boot your device using the patched boot image via this command:
fastboot boot patched_boot_magisk1642.img
Here, patched_boot_magisk1642.img is the name of the downloaded boot image file;
This will boot your device as it normally does. When your device boots up, download the Magisk Manager APK;
After that, tap on the download notification to install the APK;
Launch the Magisk Manager app and it should show that you’re rooted. This is temporary;
Go to the Magisk Manager Settings and tap on Update channel then change it to Beta;
On the Magisk main screen, check the boxes next to Preserve force encryption and Preserve AVB 2.0/dm-verity;
Then, tap on Install;
You must select Direct Install and wait for the boot.img to be patched;
At this point, reboot your device when prompted.