Stock recovery is nice, but a custom recovery gives you much more power. So today’s guide will walk you through the step by step process on how to install a custom recovery onto the Nexus 6.
Don’t get me wrong, the stock recovery that comes with Android is very helpful when you need it. If you ever run into a bootloop or somehow brick your Nexus 6, the stock recovery can definitely get you out of a jam. It’s just that the stock recovery is extremely limited and it only allows you to do a few tasks.
In order to do some much more important things, like creating an entire backup of the partitions on your Nexus 6, or even flashing a zip file onto your device, you are required to have a custom recovery installed.
My custom recovery of choice is TWRP and it allows you to do both of those tasks and much, much more. There’s another custom recovery out there called CWM(ClockworkMod) and while it is stable and reliable, you have to navigate through the menus with the hardware buttons. I prefer using the touch screen and TWRP allows me to do this. TWRP can also be themed so you can make it look incredibly good in comparison to CWM(and even in comparison to how TWRP looks like by default).
Nexus 6 Install Custom Recovery
- Unlock the Bootloader of the Nexus 6
- Root the Nexus 6
- Download and Install Flashify
- Download the Latest Version of TWRP
- Launch the Flashify Application
- Tap on the ‘Accept’ Option
- Grant Flashify Root Access
- Tap on the ‘Recovery Image’ Option
- Tap on the ‘Choose a File’ Option
- Browse to and Select the TWRP .img File You Downloaded(from step 4)
- Tap on the ‘Yup!’ Option
- Tap on the ‘Reboot Now’ Option
Explanation
There is a way of getting a custom recovery onto your Nexus 6 that is much more complicated and that requires using ADB/Fastboot in order to flash it over to the recovery partition. Not that this method is very complicated in general, but the Flashify method is much, much easier and it allows you to skip a lot of steps in the process. So to start, you will need to unlock the bootloader of the Nexus 6. Follow the tutorial that is linked in the guide above to do all of that. Once the Nexus 6 bootloader is unlocked, then you’ll need to root the Nexus 6, and again, you can follow the tutorial linked in the guide above to do that as well.
Once all of that has been completed, then we can begin the real tutorial here. Go ahead and download the Flashify application that is linked in the guide above. I recommend following that link because there are multiple apps in the Google Play Store called Flashify and this tutorial is only for one of them. Once you have Flashify on your Nexus 6, follow the link in the guide above to download the latest version of TWRP(the custom recovery .img file) onto your Nexus 6 as well. As of writing this “twrp-2.8.6.0-shamu.img” is the latest but if there is one that is newer(aka has a higher number) then download that one and the process will be the same.
Now that you have Flashify installed and the TWRP img file downloaded to the Nexus 6, you can launch the Flashify application. If you downloaded the correct one(the one linked in the tutorial), you should be greeted with a warning message. Go ahead and accept the warning message and then you’ll be greeted with a SuperSU request for this application. Flashify needs root access in order to do things like reboot and flash the custom recovery so go ahead and grant it root access. If you are worried about the application have root access to your Nexus 6 forever, you can choose to only give it root access for the next 15 minutes.
Once Flashify has root access, tap on the ‘Recovery Image’ option, then tap on the ‘Choose a File’ option and find the .img file that you downloaded from the official TWRP website. After you app on the TWRP .img file, you will be asked if you want to flash this to the recovery, go ahead and tap on the ‘Yup’ option and Flashify will flash the TWRP custom recovery onto your Nexus 6. After this is finished, you’ll be asked if you want to reboot or not, go ahead and tap on the ‘Reboot Now’ option and your Nexus 6 should reboot. This should reboot you into TWRP so if you don’t need to do anything here.
You might not have any reason to be here just yet but I like to do this so that we know that TWRP was installed correctly. When you’re ready to leave TWRP, go ahead and tap on the ‘Reboot’ option, then on the ‘System’ option to get back into the regular Android OS. This is all you have to do and the process is complete. I recommend that you immediately create your first Nandroid back but if you aren’t familiar with this. If you aren’t sure how to do this, then come back tomorrow and I will have a brand new tutorial for you to follow that shows you exactly how to create your first Nandroid backup.
As always, if you run into any issues or have any questions with this tutorial then please do not hesitate to leave a comment at the bottom of this page. I might not be able to reproduce the exact issue you are having but I will always do what I can to help you figure out how to fix it. I also want to recommend that you help the developer of this Flashify application out. If this helped to save you some time and you found it useful, there is a way to pay for the extra features that Flashify offers. Even if you don’t need them, the developer deserves to get paid for his work and this is why I unlocked the full version on my device.
