How to Unlock Bootloader of Verizon Google Pixel and Pixel XL

At this time of the year, the best Android smartphones that you can safely put your bet on are the Google Pixel and Pixel XL. It’s very obvious that the Galaxy Note 7 fiasco gave Google a chance to shine its very own stars. Taking the opportunity up, Google is putting in every single effort to make sure that the maximum possible users get their hands on the new Pixel smartphones. Google has equipped both these smartphones with a 4 GB RAM, Snapdragon 821 CPU, Adreno 530 GPU and many other top-of-the line hardware features. Both the Pixel phones run on Android Nougat out of the box.

Keeping in view the potential these devices have got, there is no point in staying stock and keeping the phones as they are. Having a Google Pixel phone and not unleashing its true potential is kind of unacceptable. To begin with all things custom, you need to unlock the bootloader and then you need to flash a custom recovery and root your phone as well. The international variants of Pixel and Pixel XL can be unlocked in a few commands in the ADB and Fastboot mode, but the hiccups start happening when it comes to carrier branded Pixels.

Verizon Google Pixel and Pixel XL come with a bootloader which isn’t very easy to unlock. The ordinary fastboot oem unlock or any other commands simply won’t work if you wish to unlock the bootloader of your VZW Pixel or Pixel XL. Thanks to famous Android developer Beaups, who developed a tool named dePixel8 to unlock the bootloader of the Pixel smartphones by Verizon in a single blow. You just need to push the files of this tool into your smartphone through ADB commands and it will do the magic. To help you further, we have this guide here which explains how to unlock bootloader of Verizon Google Pixel and Pixel XL.

Pre-requisites

1. The battery of your phone should be charged up to 50% to avoid power issues during rooting process.
2. Allow USB debugging and enable OEM unlock from the developer options in your phone.
3. Download and install Google USB drivers.
4. Download and setup Minimal ADB & Fastboot drivers.  Mac users can use this guide to install ADB & Fastboot drivers.
5. Backup everything before unlocking the bootloader. Unlocking the bootloader wipes off your phone, so this is a necessary step.
6. We will not be responsible if something goes wrong. Make sure that you are doing everything at your own risk.

How to Unlock Bootloader of Verizon Google Pixel and Pixel XL

1. Download DePixel8 tool and copy it to C drive > Program Files > Minimal ADB & Fastboot folder or wherever you have installed the Minimal ADB tool.
2. Now within the Minimal ADB and Fastboot folder,  press and hold shift key and right click on an empty area within the folder >  open command window here. Mac users can see in the Mac guide for the file they will be opening.
3. Connect your VZW Pixel or Pixel XL to your PC now using a USB cable.
4. Now in the command window, enter the following commands one by one.

   • adb push dePixel8 /data/local/tmp

   • adb shell chmod 755 /data/local/tmp/dePixel8

   • adb shell /data/local/tmp/dePixel8

5. After entering these commands one by one, your Pixel phone should automatically boot into the bootloader mode.
6. Once your phone is in the bootloader mode, enter the following commands one by one.

   • fastboot oem unlock

7. This will start unlocking the bootloader now. On the screen of your phone, accept the unlocking process by select yes and let it do the job.
8. Now enter this command to reboot your phone: fastboot reboot

• Now check: How to install TWRP Recovery on Google Pixel and Pixel XL

That’s all. If something fails to work for you, start over and it should work right. Let us know if you face any difficulties.