Last Updated on November 15, 2019 by Mathew Diekhake

If you have updated your Sony Xperia Z to the latest Android 5.1.1, then you have probably lost the root access that you were enjoying on the previous version of the Android on your phone. Whenever a new update hits the phone, it breaks access to the root because it brings with it changes that lock the access to root.

If that has happened to you, you should not be disappointed, as a new method to gain root on the phone has been found. All thanks to TWRP Recovery, you can now flash the SuperSU file on your phone and re-root your phone.

Sony Xperia Z

Curious to know how? Here’s how to first get a custom recovery up and running on your phone:

Files You Need

  1. This requires the bootloader on your phone to be unlocked. If yours is locked, please head over to the Sony Bootloader website and get your bootloader unlocked first.
  2. This should flash a custom recovery called TWRP on your Xperia Z phone.
  3. You must have a computer running Windows OS in order to do this tutorial.
  4. Make sure that the appropriate phone drivers are properly installed on your Windows computer.
  5. Download TWRP Recovery to your computer. It is the custom recovery that will be flashed on your phone.
  6. Download Fastboot to your computer. It will help you flash the above recovery on your phone.

Installing a Custom Recovery on the Sony Xperia Z running Android 5.1.1

  1. First of all, unzip files from Fastboot over to your computer by right-clicking on it and selecting Extract here.
  2. Unlock the developer options menu on your phone by heading to Menu->Settings->About phone and tapping on Build number for 7-8 times until you see a notification.
  3. When the developer menu is unlocked, head to Menu->Settings->Developer options and turn on USB debugging.
  4. Power off your phone.
  5. Reboot your phone into fastboot mode so that the TWRP Recovery can be installed on it. To do that, while your phone is turned off, hold down Volume UP and Power buttons together for a few seconds.
  6. Your phone should enter the fastboot mode.
  7. Plug in your phone to your computer using a suitable USB cable.
  8. Launch a Command Prompt Window in the fastboot folder. To do that, open the folder, hold down Shift on your keyboard and right-click anywhere on your screen and select Open command window here.
  9. Type in the following command into the Command Prompt Window and press Enter. It should show you your device.
    fastboot devices
  10. If your device shows up, run the following command using the Command Prompt Window. Make sure to replace recovery.img with the actual recovery image name.
    fastboot flash recovery recovery.img
  11. It should start flashing TWRP Recovery on your phone.
  12. Wait for it to flash TWRP on your phone.
  13. When it’s done flashing, issue the following command using Command Prompt to reboot your phone:
    fastboot reboot
  14. Your phone should reboot.
  15. You are all done!

And there you go!

TWRP Recovery has been successfully installed on your Sony Xperia Z running Android 5.1.1 Lollipop. All you need to know now is how to boot the Sony Xperia Z into the custom recovery mode on your device so you can install custom ROMs.

What comes after flashing a custom recovery on an Android device? Well, it is the root access that comes after that, and our guide on how to root the Sony Xperia Z running Android 5.1.1 should teach you how you can go about rooting your phone using this newly installed recovery.

Once your Xperia Z is rooted, you should be able to run root-requiring apps on your phone that bring forth the features that you have not seen before on your unrooted phone.

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