Last Updated on July 4, 2022 by Mathew Diekhake

The Moto G4 is Motorola’s phone in its G series for the year 2016. The phone was launched in May 2016 and it came with Android 6.0.1 Marshmallow running on-board.
As all the Moto G phones have offered some great features at a budget price, the G4 this year is no different. The phone offers everything you expect from a G series phone, such as high-end specifications like Marshmallow on-board, full HD display, an Adreno GPU, and everything else you need to have a great experience.

While the company has loaded the phone with everything you want initially, there are still many things that can be added to it if you root it. To gain root on the Moto G4, you’ll first need to unlock the bootloader and flash a custom recovery.

Unlocking the bootloader on your phone allows you to flash custom files on the phone. For instance, you can flash a custom recovery on the recovery partition on your phone after you have unlocked the bootloader. You can also flash a custom ROM if your bootloader is unlocked.

Fortunately, unlocking the bootloader on the Moto G4 is easier than you think and it is also official. All you need to do is visit the Motorola bootloader unlock website, input your phone details, and you are all set to unlock your bootloader.

Here’s the entire process of unlocking the bootloader on a Motorola Moto G4:

Things You Should Know

  1. Unlocking the bootloader voids the warranty of the phone. By doing so, you are agreeing that you are ready to lose the warranty.
  2. This should erase all the data stored on your phone. So, if you have got some important data stored there, back it up first before proceeding further.
  3. You should have a Motorola account before you can do this tutorial. If you do not have one, creating one is easy.
  4. You should have Motorola USB drivers installed on your Windows computer. Install them if they are not already.
  5. This tutorial has been written keeping the Windows version of Fastboot in mind. If you are on Linux or Mac, the steps will slightly vary and you will also need to install either ADB for Mac or ADB for Linux on your computers.
  6. You must only try this on a Motorola Moto G4 phone.

Files You Need

  1. Download Fastboot for Windows and save it to your computer. You’ll use it to execute commands on your phone.

Unlocking the Bootloader on the Motorola Moto G4

  1. Unzip files from Fastboot over to your computer by right-clicking on the archive and selecting Extract here. The files should now be available for your use.
  2. On your phone, head to Menu->Settings->About phone and tap on the option that says Build number for 7-8 times and it will unlock the developer menu for you.
  3. Head to the newly unlocked menu at Menu->Settings->Developer options and turn on the option that says USB debugging.
  4. Head to Menu->Settings->Developer options and enable the option that says Allow OEM Unlock. It will allow the bootloader to be unlocked on your phone.
  5. Power down your phone using the Power button.
  6. Power your phone back on in fastboot mode. To do that, hold down both Power and Volume DOWN buttons for a few seconds.
  7. Your phone should reboot into the fastboot mode.
  8. Plug in your phone to your computer using a suitable USB cable.
  9. Launch the folder where you have extracted Fastboot files on your computer, hold down Shift on your keyboard and right-click anywhere on the screen and select Open command window here.
  10. A new command prompt window will launch.
  11. When it launches, enter in the following command and press Enter.
    fastboot oem get_unlock_data
  12. If your computer has recognized your phone, you will see a long string of text on your screen. Now, what you need to do is copy the entire string excluding the part to your clipboard.
  13. Open a browser on your computer and head over to the Motorola Bootloader Unlock website and log-in with your account. Create a new account if you do not already have one.
  14. Follow the on-screen instructions for unlocking the bootloader on your phone. At one point, it will ask you to paste the string that you have copied to your clipboard. Paste the string and hit Submit.
  15. Once you have submitted the text string, the company will email you an unlock code that you can use to unlock the bootloader on your phone. Copy the unlock code from the email to your clipboard.
  16. Get back to the command prompt window that is open and type in the following command replacing CODE with the code you have on your clipboard and press Enter.
    fastboot oem unlock CODE
  17. It should begin unlocking the bootloader on your phone and you will be prompted for the same on your phone. Just allow it to complete its operations.
  18. When the bootloader is unlocked, reboot your phone using the following command in command prompt window:
    fastboot reboot
  19. Your phone should reboot.

And there you go, the bootloader on your Motorola Moto G4 has been successfully unlocked and you are all set to flash a custom recovery on your phone.

Follow our guide on how to flash a custom recovery on the Motorola Moto G4 to learn how you can install a custom recovery and then gain root-access on your Motorola Moto G4 phone.

Let us know how this worked for you!

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