If you want to get root access and install custom ROMs, then the easiest way to go about it is by getting a custom recovery image installed.

There used to be a few custom recovery images floating around the place, but these days the competition has all but dried up and now it’s just TWRP recovery that gets installed. That’s a good thing though because it’s also the best custom recovery image, and has all the features even the most dedicated of hackers could ask for.

Flashing custom recovery images is as easy as booting into the custom recovery, which is done by using the same keys as the stock recovery mode, and then flashing the zip files from the available navigation.

TWRP Recovery also comes with the NANDroid option from the main interface so you can backup your data between ROM flashings. TWRP also lets you restore an existing backup as well—and these can be full system image backups we’re talking about here, which means absolutely everything is backed up and restored if you check all the boxes for the different partitions that are available to be backed up. You can also choose to backup and restore only certain bits of data as well if you don’t want it all.

Details We Should Know

  • The custom recovery images available in this guide are only to be installed on the Huawei Honor 6X smartphone. Most devices have a custom recovery image developed specifically for it, and you shouldn’t install one that is intended for another device unless advised it is okay by a professional.
  • You can follow this guide on any of the major three computer operating systems: Windows, Mac, and Linux. You just need to download the right platform-tools file from the Android SDK package when you’re on the Android website, which is walked through during the guide below.

Files We Need

How to Install TWRP Recovery on Huawei P9 Smartphones

1. Make sure you’ve installed the universal ADB driver on the computer. That will make it possible for you to use adb commands as well as the Huawei Honor 6X smartphone. If you can’t get the Huawei Honor 6X phone connected to the computer, then you can also download the Huawei USB drivers instead so the computer has both the ADB drivers and Huawei drivers installed . . . you then can’t go wrong.

2. You need to have the platform-tools part of the Android SDK on your computer. From the download link scroll down until you get to the command line tools section and then download the package that is made for your operating system.

3. Once you have the SDK Manager on your computer, check the box only for the platform-tools, so you end up with the adb and fastboot binaries installed on the computer. (You could also install the drivers from there as well if you wanted.)

4. Pick up the Huawei Honor 6X smartphone and navigate to the Settings > About and tap your finger over the build number at least seven times so that the Developer Options menu becomes unlocked. Then go back to the Settings, enter the Developer Options menu and then enable the USB debugging mode.

5. Connect the Huawei Honor 6X smartphone to the computer by using the USB cable that it comes with.

6. Now on the computer open the Command Prompt and type the adb reboot bootloader command and hit “Enter” on your keyboard to get the Huawei Honor 6X smartphone into the bootloader mode and ready for the flashing.

7. Make sure you have copied the TWRP image file to the same folder as the adb and fastboot binaries. Also when you’re there, change the name of the TWRP to “twrp.img” by right-clicking the mouse pointer on it and selecting the “rename” option from the menu.

8. From the command line type the fastboot flash recovery twrp.imgcommand and hit “Enter” on your keyboard to flash the custom recovery.

9. Lastly type the fastboot reboot command and as soon as the Huawei Honor 6X smartphone reboots, hold down the key combination to boot directly into the recovery mode. (If you don’t sometimes the stock recovery will wipe over the custom recovery you just installed.)

The custom recovery image for the Huawei Honor 6X smartphone is now installed, and you are ready to boot into recovery mode and start flashing the custom ROM or rooting zip files.

Just because you swapped the stock recovery from a custom one doesn’t mean you can’t go back to the stock version later on if you want. To do that you can either unpack the stock ROM zip file and fetch out the recovery image and flash it with the adb command, or just flash the Huawei stock ROM in its entirety and it’ll automatically flash the stock ROM with it.