Magisk

Installation

If you already have Magisk installed, it is strongly recommended to upgrade directly via the Magisk app using its “Direct Install” method. The following tutorial is only for the initial installation.

Getting Started

Before you start:


Download and install the latest Magisk app. In the home screen, you should see:

The result of Ramdisk determines whether your device has ramdisk in the boot partition. If your device does not have boot ramdisk, read the Magisk in Recovery section before continuing.

(Unfortunately, there are exceptions as some devices’ bootloader accepts ramdisk even if it shouldn’t. In this case, you will have to follow the instructions as if your device’s boot partition does include ramdisk. There is no way to detect this, so the only way to know for sure is to actually try. Fortunately, as far as we know, only some Xiaomi devices are known to have this property, so most people can simply ignore this piece of information.)

If you are using a Samsung device, you can now jump to its own section.

If your device has boot ramdisk, get a copy of the boot.img (or init_boot.img if exists).
If your device does NOT have boot ramdisk, get a copy of the recovery.img.
You should be able to extract the file you need from official firmware packages or your custom ROM zip.

Quick recap, at this point, you should have known and prepared:

  1. Whether your device has boot ramdisk
  2. A boot.img, init_boot.img or recovery.img based on (1)

Let’s continue to Patching Images.

Patching Images

Warning: NEVER flash patched image shared by others or patch image on another device even if they have the same device model! You may need to do a full data wipe to recover your device. ALWAYS patch boot image on the same device where you want to install Magisk.

Uninstallation

The easiest way to uninstall Magisk is directly through the Magisk app. If you insist on using custom recoveries, rename the Magisk APK to uninstall.zip and flash it like any other ordinary flashable zip.

Magisk in Recovery

In the case when your device does not have ramdisk in boot images, Magisk has no choice but to hijack the recovery partition. For these devices, you will have to reboot to recovery every time you want Magisk enabled.

When Magisk hijacks the recovery, there is a special mechanism to allow you to actually boot into recovery mode. Each device model has its own key combo to boot into recovery, as an example for Galaxy S10 it is (Power + Bixby + Volume Up). A quick search online should easily get you this info. As soon as you press the key combo and the device vibrates with a splash screen, release all buttons to boot into Magisk. If you decide to boot into the actual recovery mode, long press volume up until you see the recovery screen.

As a summary, after installing Magisk in recovery (starting from power off):

(Note: You CANNOT use custom recoveries to install or upgrade Magisk in this case!!)

Samsung Devices

Before proceeding, please acknowledge that:

Flashing Tools

Requirements

To verify whether or not Magisk can be installed in your Samsung device, you first must check the OEM Lock and KnoxGuard (RMM) status, to do so boot your device in Download mode with its key combo.

Possible OEM Lock values are the following:

To unlock your bootloader, follow the instructions below. If no OEM Lock value is shown in Download mode, your device is probably not unlockable due to market limitations (USA/Canada devices).

Possible KnoxGuard values are the following:

Having KnoxGuard active will prevent you from installing/running Magisk regardless of your bootloader lock state.

Unlocking the bootloader

Instructions

Upgrading the OS

Once you have rooted your Samsung device, you can no longer upgrade your Android OS through OTA. To upgrade your device’s OS, you have to manually download the new firmware zip file and go through the same AP patching process written in the previous section. The only difference here is in the Odin flashing step: do NOT use the CSC tar, but instead use the HOME_CSC tar as we are performing an upgrade, not the initial install.

Important Notes

Custom Recovery

This installation method is deprecated and is maintained with minimum effort. YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED!

Installing using custom recoveries is only possible if your device has boot ramdisk. Installing Magisk through custom recoveries on modern devices is no longer recommended. If you face any issues, please use the Patch Image method.

Warning: the sepolicy.rule file of modules may be stored in the cache partition. DO NOT WIPE THE CACHE PARTITION.