Last Updated on July 19, 2022 by Mathew Diekhake

Those of you who were waiting for a root method to root their Motorola Moto X running on Android 5.1 would be glad to know that finally their phone can be rooted, all thanks to TWRP and SuperSU.

The procedure first flashes a custom recovery on the phone and then uses it to flash SuperSU in order to root the phone. It all works step-by-step and following are the steps to do so:

Root-Moto-X-5-1

Files You Need

  1. Your bootloader must be unlocked before you can do this tutorial. If yours is locked, please see the instructions here for more details.
  2. This should also flash a custom recovery called TWRP on your Moto X.
  3. You must have a Windows running computer in order to do this tutorial.
  4. Make sure that Universal ADB drivers are installed on your computer. If they are not, install them first.
  5. Download TWRP Recovery to your computer. Please download the 2.8.6.0 version as it is confirmed to be working fine.
  6. Download Fastboot to your computer. It should help you flash the recovery on your phone.
  7. You should only try this on the Motorola Moto X phone.

Rooting the Motorola Moto X running on Android 5.1

  1. First of all, extract files from Fastboot over to your computer by right-clicking on it and selecting Extract here.
  2. Head to Menu->Settings->About phone on your phone and tap on Build number for 7-8 times and it will say you are a developer. That should unlock the developer options menu on your phone.
  3. Now, head to Menu->Settings->Developer options and turn on the USB debugging option.
  4. Once the USB debugging option has been enabled, turn off your phone.
  5. Turn your phone back on in fastboot mode. To do that, hold down Volume DOWN and Power buttons together for a few seconds on your phone.
  6. Your phone should reboot into the fastboot mode.
  7. Plug in your phone to your computer using a suitable USB cable.
  8. Copy TWRP Recovery to the folder where fastboot.exe is located.
  9. Launch a Command Prompt Window in the Fastboot folder by opening the folder, holding down Shift on the keyboard and right-clicking anywhere on the screen and selecting Open command window here.
  10. Type in the following command into the Command Prompt Window:
    fastboot devices
  11. Your device should show up in the devices list.
  12. Next up, issue the following command to flash the recovery on your phone. Make sure to replace twrp.img with the actual recovery image name.
    fastboot flash recovery twrp.img
  13. Wait for it to flash TWRP Recovery on your phone.
  14. When it’s done flashing TWRP, reboot your phone using the following command:
    fastboot reboot-bootloader
  15. Your phone should reboot into the bootloader mode.
  16. Select the Recovery option appearing on your screen.
  17. Your phone should now reboot into the newly installed custom recovery mode.
  18. The TWRP Recovery should prompt you to install SuperSU on your phone. Hit Yes and wait for it to root your phone.
  19. The recovery should let you know when it has rooted your phone.
  20. When rooting’s done, reboot your phone using the Reboot followed by System option.
  21. You are all set!

Your Motorola Moto X running on Android 5.1 is now rooted and has a custom recovery.

Since you have a custom recovery installed on the Motorola Moto X — TWRP recovery — you can now check out the 11 best custom ROMs for the Motorola Moto X smartphone. You can now install any of these on your device.

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