TWRP for Sony Xperia XZ
Team Win strives to provide a quality product. However, it is your decision to install our software on your device. Team Win takes no responsibility for any damage that may occur from installing or using TWRP.
Support Status: Current
Maintainer: AdrianDC and sjllls
Code Name: kagura
The Xperia devices have a recovery-in-boot arrangement. This means that the recovery is booted using the regular kernel / boot image in the device. Team Win has worked with the FreeXperia device maintainers to come up with a way to extract the ramdisk from the FOTAKernel partition and use the ramdisk from that partition instead of the recovery that is included in the boot image of your device. This means that if you install current CM nightlies and flash TWRP to the FOTAKernel partition, you will be able to use TWRP instead of the CWM or CM recovery that normally comes in a CM boot image. Other boot images including stock kernels can be repacked to include this extraction utility to allow you to use TWRP from the FOTAKernel partition. This setup allows you to choose what recovery you want to have installed and allows you to update your recovery more easily. Unfortunately this setup requires that the boot image that you have installed include the ramdisk extraction utility. The source for this utility is here:
https://github.com/Dees-Troy/extract_elf_ramdisk
This setup means that you must have a kernel or boot image installed that will use the FOTAKernel method. This utility is designed to work in conjunction with the current methods that most AOSP ROMs, like OmniROM or CyanogenMod, will support. Some rare stock kernels may also support the FOTAKernel method.
What does all this mean? It means that TWRP may not work on your device unless you install other custom software as well. Check with your ROM developer to see what they support.
Download the Official TWRP App (root required):
Install the app and open it. Agree to the Terms. Select TWRP Flash. Select your device from the device list (kagura) and choose a version. The file will download to your Downloads folder. Browse to and select the file. Tap on Flash to Recovery. Find out more about the app here.
Current and past versions of TWRP can be found at one of the mirrors below:
Download the latest TWRP image file (.img) from the download link and boot TWRP. Go to install and find and select the Images... button. Browse to the image that you downloaded and select it. Choose recovery and swipe to flash.
You will need the platform-tools from the Android SDK on your computer. Download the platform-tools as per your operating system.
Windows users will need proper drivers installed on their computer. You can try the simple FWUL adb/fastboot ISO or the Naked ADB drivers or the Universal ADB drivers if you don't already have a working driver installed
On your device, go into Settings -> About and find the Build Number and tap on it 7 times to enable developer settings. Press back and go into Developer Options and enable USB debugging. From your computer, open a command prompt and type:
adb reboot bootloader
You should now be in fastboot mode.
Download the correct image file and copy the file into the same folder as your platform-tools. Rename the image to twrp.img and type:
fastboot flash recovery twrp.img
fastboot reboot
Note many devices will replace your custom recovery automatically during first boot. To prevent this, use Google to find the proper key combo to enter recovery. After typing fastboot reboot, hold the key combo and boot to TWRP. Once TWRP is booted, TWRP will patch the stock ROM to prevent the stock ROM from replacing TWRP. If you don't follow this step, you will have to repeat the install.