Last Updated on September 7, 2024 by Mathew Diekhake

Installing a custom recovery on the Sony Xperia Z5 Premium smartphone is easy if you set up ADB and Fastboot. Once you have the TWRP recovery on your device, you can boot it up and start taking NANDroid Backups. These NANDroid backups are the only way to take a complete backup on your Z5 device without using adb commands every time. A custom recovery is well worth installing for the NANDroid option alone, even if you do not want to flash a new custom ROM on your device. Furthermore, those of you who are rooting the Sony Xperia Z5 Premium smartphone can install the NANDroid Manager app from the Google Play Store for the perfect one-two punch.

Sony Xperia Z5 Premium

Files You Need

  1. You must have an unlocked bootloader on the Z5 Premium before starting this guide. You can find out how to unlock the bootloader over at the Sony Developer World.
  2. Download the TWRP recovery image for your Z5 Premium from this page.
  3. You must have the ADB and Fastboot set up on your computer before you can follow this guide to install your custom recovery.
  4. You are voiding the warranty of your Z5 Premium smartphone by following this guide. You can flash the stock ROM back on the device and get the warranty working again.

Installing TWRP recovery on the Sony Xperia Z5 Premium E6853

  1. Download the custom recovery file from the link above directly to your computer.
  2. Drag it over to the desktop and extract the file by right-clicking on the file and selecting the “extract here” option.
  3. Set up your ADB and Fastboot on the computer and shift your TWRP file into the same folder.
  4. From within the TWRP recovery folder, hold the Shift key and right-click the mouse where there is no file and choose to open a new command window here from the new menu.
  5. Type the following command and press enter: fastboot flash recovery twrp-2.8.7.0-E6853-20151122_material.img
  6. Type the last command: fastboot reboot

Your Xperia Z5 Premium device will now reboot back in normal mode and you can choose to boot it up in the custom recovery mode any time you want. You have officially replaced the stock recovery with a custom version and you will always have the custom recovery until you flash the stock ROM or recovery back on the device. Most stock ROMs also come with the stock recovery in a bundle.

You might want to learn how to boot the Xperia Z5 Premium smartphone up in the custom recovery mode so you can install your custom ROMs or use the complete backup feature.