Rooting Pixel 3

The first pancake is always lumpy

 Posted on December 16, 2018  |  2 minutes (338 words)

Our very first drop test immediately confirmed initial suspicions about the questionable design decision to accommodate wireless charging by using the thinnest possible moulded plastic for the rear body (wrapped in glass no less!).

Needless to say, we’ve gotten pretty good at flashing and rooting the Pixel 3.

First Things First

  1. System > About Phone

    • Hit Build Number 7 times

  2. System > Developer Options

    • Enable OEM unlocking
    • Enable USB debugging

  3. Download lastest Android platform tools from https://developer.android.com/studio/releases/platform-tools

Factory Images

You’ll need these:
https://developers.google.com/android/images#blueline

Unlock bootloader

adb reboot bootloader
fastboot flashing unlock
fastboot reboot

Hit either volume button until it says “unlock the bootloader” then press the power button to confirm

Install Magisk (the easy way)

  1. Extract boot.img from the release image zip

  2. Copy the boot image to the Pixel (make sure you keep this somewhere on /sdcard)

    ./adb push boot.img /sdcard

  3. Choose the patched boot image install option using Magisk Manager and copy off the phone

    ./adb pull /Download/boot_patched.img

    ./adb reboot bootloader

    ./fastboot flash boot boot_ptached.img

Bonus! Restore boot.img from Magisk Manager and reboot whenever you need to accept OTA updates

Now What

Here’s some links to get you started on your way.

Root-only Apps:

Magisk Modules:

F-Droid Apps:

If The Shit Hits The Fan

Restoring your Pixel is easy as long as you can boot into either recovery or fastboot.

Remove the -w from flash-all.sh to avoid wiping your data (no promises)

Install TWRP

Installing TWRP lets you sideload OTA updates, install custom kernels and backup your entire system

Download TWRP image and installer zip from https://dl.twrp.me/blueline/

./adb devices
./adb push twrp-pixel3-installer-blueline-3.2.3-0.zip /sdcard
./adb reboot bootloader
./fastboot flashing unlock

Hit volume until the menu changes

./fastboot boot twrp-3.2.3-0-blueline.img

Install TWRP zip using the install menu

Install Magisk (using TWRP)

Download latest Magisk, Magisk Manager and Magisk uninstaller from https://github.com/topjohnwu/Magisk/releases

./adb push Magisk* /sdcard
./adb reboot recovery

Then install Magisk zip using TWRP menu

pixel  magisk