Last Updated on July 20, 2022 by Mathew Diekhake

There’s many rumors out there on how to root the ZTE ZMax smartphone. Oddly, it’s a new phone that’s come out not long ago and hasn’t easily found a rooting method by one of the usual third-party developers. Furthermore, a quick look around the web has several sites attempting to give guides that are met with nothing but abuse. My curiosity on if a developer had made a root method yet causes me to take another look around the web today and here’s what I found:

Before starting the guide I will give you a list of essentials that you’ll need to learn before starting. That way you’ll know which model of the ZTE phone you need, other items you need and the risks involved.

Boost ZTE Max

Details of Note

  • You must have the ZTE ZMax with model number N9520 to follow this guide. There a few different model numbers for different phone carrier networks. Check what yours says by stopping over at the Settings > About Device and looking at the number from there.
  • We highly recommend you backup the device before starting the guide. That way if unlocking the internal system doesn’t work for you, you can apply a factory reset, restore the old data and your device is fine again.
  • Make sure you check the box enabling the Unknown Sources from the Settings > Security > Unknown Sources otherwise you won’t be able to open the rooting file from the file manager.
  • Enable the USB Debugging mode if you are transferring the file from computer to the ZTE phone like we recommend. Head over to the Settings > Developer Options > Enable USB Debugging Mode from there.
  • Note that you are voiding the warranty of the device by following our rooting guide. Most of you probably do have the Max warranty since it’s a new device.

How to root the ZTE ZMax N9520

  1. Download the rooting tool from here.
  2. Transfer the file from the Windows PC over to the internal ZTE phone storage.
  3. Open up the rooting file from a trusty file manager such as ASTRO file manager from Google Play.
  4. Wait for the iRoot tool to finish installing.
  5. Launch the iRoot tool.
  6. Click the “Agree” button in blue after launching.
  7. You’ll now see a funny-looking green man on the screen and the N9520 model number. Click the button to confirm it’s not rooted.
  8. Wait until you see the green man’s mouth wide open and the words “success of root” appearing on the display.

You can verify that it worked by installing the root checker app from the Google Play Store.