Root Moto G5S and Install TWRP Recovery

Ever since being separated from Google, most people will agree that Motorola has kind of lost its way. Although financially it seems to have found its way, the company’s devices don’t excite the enthusiasts as they used to. Regardless, the Moto G5sS, a budget phone launched in 2017, finally has an official TWRP build. So you can now install official TWRP recovery on Moto G5s. Obviously then, one can also root Moto G5s.

Warning

If you root your Moto G5s it will void your warranty. Besides, flashing a custom recovery and using it to flash third-party mods can be risky. You may end up bricking your device. Even if you follow all the steps mentioned below correctly, there is still a chance that things may go south for you. Make sure you know what you’re doing and do everything at your own risk. DroidViews or anyone else cannot be held responsible under such circumstances.

The process of rooting itself neither requires you to format your device nor it should be formatted automatically. Still, make sure you have backed up everything important, including files and folders on your device’s internal storage. Creating a backup is never a bad idea. If you haven’t unlocked the bootloader yet tough, your device will be wiped clean, including the internal storage, when you do unlock it.

Requirements

Before you can root Moto G5s, please make sure to have done the things mentioned below.

1. A Motorola Moto G5s with an unlocked bootloader.
2. You’ll need a Windows, Mac or Linux computer with Android SDK Platform-tools. We do have a dedicated, detailed guide on how to do just that for all the three platforms, linked below.
   • Download Android SDK Platform Tools for Windows, Mac & Linux
   • Extract the downloaded zip file anywhere on your PC.
   • The extracted platform-tools folder contains all the necessary tools required to run ADB and Fastboot.
3. Since you’ll need to connect your phone to your PC with a USB cable, be certain that the cable isn’t loose.
4. Enable USB debugging and OEM unlock on your device, found in Developer options.
   • Go to Settings > About phone.
   • Tap on Build number 7 times.
   • You’ll see a toast message that says, “You’re a developer.”
   • Go back to Settings now, and you’ll find a new option called “Developer Options”, select it.
   • Scroll down and find out OEM Unlocking and USB Debugging and enable it. OEM Unlocking should already be enabled or grayed out if you’ve unlocked your bootloader.
5. Ensure that your Moto G5s has at least 50% battery left so as to prevent any accidental shutdowns.
6. Windows users will need to install Motorola USB drivers as well.

Download Moto G5S TWRP Image and Magisk

• TWRP for Moto G5s: twrp-3.3.1-0-montana.img
• Root: Magisk v19.3

Install TWRP on Moto G5S

1. Launch a command prompt or terminal inside the platform-tools folder.
   • On Windows, with the platform-tools folder is open, type cmd in the address bar and hit Enter to launch a command prompt window within the folder.
   • Linux and Mac users can simply right-click inside the folder and select Open in Terminal to launch a Terminal and use adb.
2. Once the command prompt or Terminal is open, connect your Moto G7 Plus to your PC.
   • On your phone, you will be asked to grant USB Debugging permission to the PC.
   • If it doesn’t come up yet, enter the following command in the command prompt/terminal to force it.

     adb devices

     

   • Once the permission is granted, you will see your device’s serial number returned as shown below.
3. Now use the following command to boot your phone in fastboot mode.

   adb reboot fastboot

4. Once in the fastboot mode, install TWRP on your Moto G5s with this command.

   fastboot flash recovery /path/to/twrp-3.3.1-0-montana.img

   Replace /path/to/ with the location path of the image file. This step can be avoided if you move the TWRP image inside ADB folder. This will shorten the command down to:

   fastboot flash recovery twrp-3.3.1-0-montana.img

5. Finally, when the recovery has been flashed, reboot your device.

   fastboot reboot

You can’t just flash a custom recovery image like TWRP on your Android device. There are a lot of wonderful things you can do using ADB and fastboot commands.

Root Moto G5s

Having installed TWRP recovery on your phone, let’s see how we can root Moto G5s. Just follow the steps described below.

1. Connect your device to the PC again and use the ADB command given below to boot it into the newly installed TWRP recovery.

   adb reboot recovery

2. Once in TWRP recovery, it’s wise to first take a full NANDroid backup of your device, just in case you may want to revert your device back to a working state.
   • To do this, go to Backup and select all the partitions. Swipe at the bottom to begin the backup process.
3. When you have a backup, or you have decided to skip it, select Install from the TWRP main menu.
4. Navigate to and select the downloaded Magisk-v19.3.zip file and select it.
5. Swipe at the bottom to flash the zip.
6. When it is done, you will see a Reboot system button at the bottom, tap on it and your device will reboot.

When your device turns on again, you will have root access to your Moto G5s. You can find Magisk Manager amongst all your other apps in the app drawer. You can use it to grant or deny root access to other apps as well as a whole lot of other things using Magisk modules.