Samsung Galaxy S4 I9500 got Android 5.0.1 Lollipop OTA update. Android 5.0.1 Lollipop has all the features and beauty that anyone needs in his/her phone but if you are an advance Android user, and always do some customizations to your ph0ne, you need to root your Galaxy S4. Go to XDA developers to read about rooting your Galaxy S4 with stock Android 5.0.1 ROM.

And if you want root access on your Galaxy S4 I9500 with stock Android 5.0.1 ROM you should have a custom recovery installed on your device which supports Android 5.0 Lollipop firmware. Today i introduce to a touch custom recovery “PhilZ Recovery”, this recovery supports Android 5.0 ROMs and helps you to root your Galaxy S4.

Android Lollipop

PhilZ recovery is one other custom recovery like CWM and TWRP  but better then these cause it has a touch interface, easy to use and have some good tools to tweak your device. PhilZ recovery connects you and your phone internally so you can install system apps, custom ROM, patches, custom kernel and make backup of your stock ROM.

This PhilZ recovery is an unofficial software made by some third-party developers, so installing this to your phone is an illegal action that you are going to perform on your phone. All this process is much risky cause if you do anything wrong or didn’t apply the steps carefully you got nothing but a bricked Galaxy S4. This recovery will remove the stock revery comes pre-installed with your Galaxy S4. So you may loose your phone’s warranty.

You should make a backup all your important data, pics, movies, documents etc to your PC or  other external drive. To make sure that if anything goes wrong you would not loose your important data. You can use Titanium backup application available on Google Play Store which helps you to back up your apps so that if you brick your device you can restore your apps to the new ROM when you install it to your device.

Now, some preparations you have to do before go to the tutorial:

  • You should have access to a Windows-based PC.
  • Disable all antivirus and anti-malware so that they can’t come across all the process.
  • Download all the software and files listed in this tutorial (all of them are important for this process).
  • Turn on USB debugging on your phone by going to Settings > About Phone > tap on Build Number 7 times, now go back to settings > Developer Options > check the USB Debugging check box.
  • Charge your device to at least 75% so that your phone will not lose power during this process.
  • You should have a USB cable of course.

Do not try this process on any other phone, this process is strictly for Samsung Galaxy S4 I9500 model running Android 5.0.1 Lollipop. If you try to use these files on any other device, it may brick your device.

Steps to install PhilZ recovery on Samsung Galaxy S4 I9500 running Android 5.0.1 Lollipop:

  1. Download Odin, Recovery image file and Samsung Kies.
  2. Install Samsung Kies in PC so it will install drivers automatically.
  3. Now kill all the Samsung Kies related process on your PC using task manager.
  4. Unzip Odin zip file then run Odin.exe.
  5. Reboot your device to download mode by power down your device then power it on by pressing power, volume down and home key together.
  6. Connect your Phone with PC via USB cable.
  7. When Odin detects your phone “added” message will get displayed.
  8. Now on Odin click on “PA” button and select the recovery file download earlier.
  9. After selecting the recovery file, finally click on Start.
  10. After some time a “pass” message will get displayed and your phone will reboot automatically.

Now you have PhilZ recovery installed and you can get access to it by rebooting to recovery mode by powering down your phone and power it on by pressing power, volume up and power key together. Now you can take control over your device using this touch enabled PhilZ recovery.