How to Install TWRP on the OnePlus 7 & 7 Pro?

Using TWRP on the OnePlus 7 and the OnePlus 7 Pro will open up a number of new features available to you. This isn’t a software change that is normally allowed so you will have to unlock the bootloader beforehand. However, once that is done you can follow these easy steps to install TWRP as your brand new custom recovery.

If you’ve been following along, then you already know what Recovery Mode is on the OnePlus 7. If not, then I recommend you go back and read how to boot the OnePlus 7 into Recovery Mode. Boot into it on your smartphone (by following along with my video) and you’ll get to see what features it has.

Now, TWRP is a custom recovery and that means it will be replacing the “stock recovery” that you see comes from OnePlus. TWRP is the most popular custom recovery available for Android and you’ll see me recommend installing it on virtually every smartphone here on Android Explained.

TWRP comes with a number of incredibly useful features that aren’t available from the stock recovery.

The main benefit of TWRP is gaining the ability to install ZIP files. These ZIP files can be software mods, custom kernels, a way to gain root access, or even entire custom ROMs. TWRP also lets you create full snapshot backups (something that Android is sorely missing), and much more.

Requirements

• Unlock the Bootloader of the OnePlus 7 (or OnePlus 7 Pro)

To proceed, you need to have completed the above tutorial (and everything mentioned in that tutorial, such as installing ADB/Fastboot).

Note – As of this edit, the official TWRP build does not work for the OxygenOS 10 firmware. Until that update is released, it is advised that you grab the unofficial build linked below this tutorial. That updated release of TWRP will work on both the OnePlus 7 & OnePlus 7 Pro that’s running OxygenOS 10.0 or higher.

Note – Installing an OTA update directly from OnePlus (via the system notification) after you have installed TWRP will trigger a special install of the update. This install will wipe out your TWRP install so you will need to flash the TWRP .IMG and .ZIP files again if you want to retain this custom recovery.

17 steps may seem like a lot but it’s actually quite easy to complete this tutorial. It may seem complex due to the number of steps I wrote out, but that’s more about my writing style than its complexity. My goal is to break things down into very easy to understand and easy to follow instructions.

You can see this shine through with things such as Steps #7, #8, and #9. I split up the process of executing a command in the Command Prompt or Windows PowerShell into three separate steps just to make sure things are as clear as possible. I try to do this with all of the tutorials I write.

The key thing to understand is that even if you mess up here, you can follow an unbrick tutorial and restart from scratch.

How to Install TWRP on OxygenOS 10.0 and Higher

It was recently pointed out to me that the above tutorial does not currently work on the OnePlus 7 or the OnePlus 7 Pro when it is running OxygenOS 10.0 and higher. This is actually quite common among devices that have received a new major version update for Android. It’s just a transitionary period that we have to wait through.

The maintainer of the official TWRP build for the OnePlus 7 and OnePlus 7 Pro is aware of the issue but there hasn’t been an official TWRP update as of yet. So for now, you will want to download this unofficial build from XDA Senior Member mauronofrio until an official TWRP update has been released.

This is a “unified” build of TWRP for both the OnePlus 7 as well as the OnePlus 7 Pro.

So it doesn’t matter which device you have, as long as it’s the OnePlus 7 or the OnePlus 7 Pro then you’ll be using that recovery image to install TWRP. The rest of the step by step tutorial above works exactly the same. You just want to replace the twrp.img file downloaded in Step #1 with this new build.

Otherwise, it is advised to wait until an official build of TWRP is released for these smartphones. The upcoming update will fix this bootloop issue with OxygenOS 10.0 and higher (based on Android 10 – aka Android Q) and TWRP for the OnePlus 7 and OnePlus 7 Pro.

By now, you should understand that we are replacing the original, stock recovery software with a custom one that was developed by the community.

This means that anytime you boot the OnePlus 7 or OnePlus 7 Pro into Recovery Mode that you’ll be taken into TWRP. You can do everything you could do in the stock recovery software in TWRP as well. So there’s no need to worry about missing out on features from the original Android Recovery Mode software.