How To Install TWRP Recovery on Xiaomi Mi A1

Xiaomi Mi A1 is company’s first Android One based smartphone. This phone was launched just a couple of months back in India. The Mi A1 has promising specifications on board. It’s a phone with a 5.5-inch 1080p display. It has a dual 12MP camera and a 5MP camera on the front. The Mi A1 is powered by Qualcomm Snapdragon 625 CPU and a 4GB RAM. Internal storage is 64GB and it has expandable storage slot supporting up to 128GB. It has a whopping 3080 mAh battery. The Mi A1 came out running on Android 7.1.2 Nougat. In near future, this phone will be updated to Android 8.0 Oreo. The system will remain Android One which is a light version of Android for low-end smartphones.

Xiaomi Mi A1 has got the custom recovery support now. Mi A1 owners can grab the official build of TWRP recovery for their handset. The recovery just made it to the phone yesterday. With the custom recovery, the possibilities to unleash the true power of your Android handset are countless. If you are already wondering what you can do with the TWRP recovery, then let’s dribble on the list of the uses of TWRP recovery first.

At first, a custom recovery will enable Mi A1 owners to play with the part of the phone which is apparently locked by Xiaomi. The TWRP brings a list of useful features including the ability to Backup the entire phone and all individual partitions as well. There is a choice to wipe the partitions separately. You can also wipe Cache, Dalvik Cache of the phone. It is very easy to flash ZIP and IMG files with the install option in TWRP. Rooting the phone after installing a custom recovery is amazingly easy as well. There are many such things that you can do to go beyond the boundaries set by your device manufacturer.

In this tutorial, we will learn how to install TWRP Recovery on Xiaomi Mi A1. After installing the TWRP custom recovery on Xiaomi Mi A1, we will also have a look at the steps to root the Mi A1.

How To Install TWRP Recovery on Xiaomi Mi A1

Prerequisites

1. This guide is only for the Xiaomi Mi A1. Do not try this on another phone.
2. Charge your phone up to 50% to avoid power loss during the installation process.
3. Backup your contacts, call logs, and SMS messages.
4. Backup your media content as well.
5. Enable USB Debugging and OEM Unlocking on your Mi A1.
6. Unlock the bootloader of your Xiaomi Mi A1.
7. Always use original data cable to establish a connection between your phone and your computer.

Download required to install TWRP on Mi A1

1. Download and install Xiaomi Mi A1 USB Drivers.
2. Download the TWRP Recovery 3.1.1-0.img file for Mi A1.
3. Download and install Minimal ADB and USB Drivers on your Windows PC.
4. Download dm-verity.zip file.
5. Download Magisk.zip file.

Install TWRP Recovery on Xiaomi Mi A1

1. Make sure that you have downloaded all files and made the necessary installations.
2. Rename the downloaded TWRP Recovery.img file to recovery.img only.
3. Now copy the recovery.img file to the Minimal ADB and Fastboot directory located in C:\Program Files x86\Minimal ADB and Fastboot.
4. From the desktop, launch the Minimal ADB and Fastboot.exe to open the command window now.
5. It’s time to connect your phone to your computer now.
6. Now in the command window, enter the following commands one by one.
   1. adb devices
   2. adb reboot bootloader
   3. fastboot devices
   4. fastboot flash recovery recovery.img
   5. fastboot reboot recovery
7. Now your phone will boot into the recovery mode.
8. Swipe the screen to allow modifications now.
9. In TWRP, tap Wipe > Format Data.
10. Now connect your phone to your computer now while being in TWRP.
11. Copy the dm-verity and the Magisk.zip files.
12. From the TWRP’s main menu, tap Install > Locate and flash dm-verity.zip file.
13. Similarly, flash the Magisk.zip file.
14. Now tap Reboot > System.
15. Your Mi A1 will reboot now and you will have your phone rooted. You can install Magisk Manager from the Play Store to manage root access on your phone now. That’s all.