Last Updated on September 20, 2024 by Mathew Diekhake

OnePlus 3TEvery Android device right around the world ships with a recovery environment preinstalled, known as the “stock recovery.” The recovery environment is a seperate partition from the Android operating system itself so that no matter what problem the OS has, you can still always get access to the recovery partition to restore your device to its default factory state or install new software update and perform other diagnostic tasks.

Given that the Android operating system is based on open source software, it remains open to be tinkered with by developers who get their hands on its open source code. A developer will never be able to change anything you use on your screen just by grabbing the code because what you see on your device’s display is an official update by Android that is locked in for good. But there are developers out there creating new ROMs, which are like third-party operating systems, in many respects, and they allow you to swap that official version of Android that you’re looking at for a custom one, made by those third-party developers. Those are called custom ROMs, and they are one of the main reasons for people wanting to swap the stock recovery partition for a custom recovery instead.

The stock recovery, while doing great things for fixing problems, only allows the flashing of official and signed zip files. In other words, you can only install official Android updates from the stock recovery environment. But before you can install a custom ROM from a recovery partition, you first need to have a recovery that allows for the flashing of unsigned zip files. That’s where the custom recovery images come into play: they allow for all unsigned zips to get flashed, including your custom ROMs files and rooting files as well.

This is what you need to install TWRP Recovery on the OnePlus 3T smartphones.

Details of Note

  • The custom recovery images available in this guide are only to be installed on the OnePlus 3T 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.
  • The OnePlus 5T is a dm-verity device, meaning that swiping to allow system modifications results in your device being unable to boot if it is using the stock kernel. To get around dm-verity’s boot prevention, you must first install a kernel that has dm-verity disabled in the fstab.
  • The codename for the OnePlus 3T TWRP recovery image is “OnePlus3.” You will see that codename in the TWRP image file path and also from your About Device menu so you know you are flashing the right file on the right device.
  • 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 Required

How to Install TWRP Recovery on OnePlus 3T

1. Install the universal ADB drivers on the computer.

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 OnePlus 3T 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 OnePlus X 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 following command and hit “Enter” on your keyboard to get the OnePlus 3T smartphone into the bootloader mode and ready for the flashing:

adb reboot bootloader

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 following command and hit Enter on your keyboard to flash the custom recovery:

fastboot flash recovery twrp.img

9. Lastly type the following command and as soon as the OnePlus 3T 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.

fastboot reboot

The custom recovery image for the OnePlus 3T smartphone is now installed, and you are ready to boot into recovery mode and start flashing the custom ROM or rooting zip files.

That’s all.