Rooting your phone and unlocking its true potential is one of the
best parts of the Android ecosystem, and just one of the things that
sets it apart from Windows 10 Mobile and iOS. Of course, it isn’t for
everyone. For one, the process is a bit complicated. Not to mention the
fact that you could potentially harm your device, and tinkering with a
handset can void the warranty, resulting in an unfortunate situation
.
Don’t want to be part of the root club anymore? Being in Google’s
protective arms is definitely nice, and it is an inconvenience that
root generally gets in the way of updating your software over the air.
Additionally, when it comes to selling a phone, many buyers want the
“out of box” experience, as if the phone were brand new, which root
technically detracts from.
The thing is, there’s plenty of tutorials out there for rooting a
smartphone, but not as many show you how to unroot. Let’s fix that!
See also – Benefits of rooting your phone
Unroot by using SuperSU
Many users take advantage of SuperSU, a popular tool for managing
rooted devices. Among its many features is the ability to unroot your
device.
The process is as simple as they get. Just open the SuperSU app
and head over to the Settings tab. Scroll down and select “Full Unroot”.
Follow instructions and let the phone do its thing. After it takes care
of business, just restart the phone and you will be back to normal.
Unroot by using an app
Not
using SuperSU? There’s a slight chance you might still be able to
unroot your phone by taking advantage of a simple app. The only caveat
is that these applications don’t seem to work well with every smartphone
out there. It’s kind of a hit or miss.
The most popular option is Universal Unroot, which can easily get rid of root privileges in Android devices. Sadly, there’s plenty of downsides. For starters, a bunch of Samsung devices won’t work, due to a complication with KNOX. LG devices will be unrooted, but they will still show as rooted afterwards, thanks to LG’s eFuse.
I will say this is a bit of a gamble, as it costs $0.99, but that
might be worth it if you don’t want to play around with your phone too
much.
Unroot by using a file manager
Root access might seem like a complicated set-up, but it’s really
nothing but a bunch of files on your phone. Get rid of them and root
will also go away.
To do this, you will need a file manager with root access. My
favorite one happens to be ES File Explorer (just turn on root access in
the settings).
- Access your device’s main drive and look for “system”. Select it, and then tap on “bin”. From there, delete “busybox” and “su”. By the way, these might not be there. If that is the case, move on to the next step.
- Go back to the system folder and select “xbin”. If the files are there, go ahead and delete both “busybox” and “su”.
- Go back to the system folder and select “app”.
- Delete “superuser,apk”.
- Restart the device and it will all be done.
Unroot by installing an OTA update!
Remember we told you root gets in the way of updating? Well, that
is only if you want to update the traditional way, you can still push
updates manually. We won’t get into those details right now, but the
trick here is that software updates tend to break root access. Most
users have to root again, but if you don’t want root it’s easy to simply
install your next update.
The obvious downside is that you do have to wait for an update to
arrive. Oh, and don’t forget to uninstall SuperSu and any other
root-related apps. Alos keep in mind that this will only work when using
the stock recovery on your device.
Unroot by installing stock firmware
Taking the phone back to its original firmware is usually the
best way to unroot a phone. There’s no ifs or buts here, it will work
regardless of your device, ROM, kernel or recovery. This is because the
firmware has all the necessary software packaged together.
The only sad part is that we can’t quite give you a tutorial.
Phones have different ways of accomplishing a firmware install, so you
will have to do a bit of research on how to do this to your specific
smartphone. Users will need to download their specific firmware files,
use USB Debugging and possibly download some PC software.
Wrapping it up
So there you have it, guys. Now you have the necessary tools for
getting your phone away from the potentially dangerous world of rooting.
Remember smartphone hackery is not exactly for everyone!
Have any of you guys tried these methods? Hit the comments to let
us know your experiences. I have personally only used the last option. I
feel like clean starts are always better, but I do have to say it makes
me work and research much harder. Any other tips you can think of?
Share them down in the comments below.
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