How to Install the Pixel 7 Monthly Security OTA Update while Keeping Your Data

If you have previously rooted the Google Pixel 7 or Pixel 7 Pro then you can use this tutorial to install the monthly OTA update while keeping all of your personal data and re-rooting the phone.

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Video Description
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Many of us enjoy the additional features that are unlocked by gaining root access to the Pixel 7 and Pixel 7 Pro. But the monthly OTA updates can cause conflicts with this setup since they aren't seamlessly installed through the traditional OTA process. In fact, you'll get an error if you try to install an OTA update on a rooted Pixel device.

So in today's video, I'm going to show you a method of installing these monthly security OTA updates on the Pixel 7 and Pixel 7 Pro while keeping all of your personal data intact. Once the update has been installed properly, we can then re-root the phone again.

#GooglePixel #Pixel7 #Pixel7Pro #googlePIxel7 #googlepixel7pro

This process starts by first disabling all of the Magisk Modules you may have installed. We do this by opening up the Magisk app, tapping the Modules tab here at the bottom, and then toggling each of the active modules off. We will then perform a reboot so that the modules actually get unloaded on boot.

If you have installed any other root mods to your phone, it's also advised that you undo those changes as well before continuing with the update process.

With this done, we're going to use a computer to bring up the Google Factory Images website since we're going to be installing this OTA update using the Android Flash Tool in a Chrome web browser. I'll go ahead and link to this website in the video description below for anyone who needs a direct link to the page.

Using the Android Flash Tool, we're going to grant ADB access and then select our device in this top section here.

We're going to make sure the wipe data option is NOT checked, and we also have the option to disable verity and verification here if that's how you want to set up your phone. These two options are usually only for those who want to install a custom kernel and since I won't be doing that to mine right now, I'm going to ignore these options.

When you're ready, let's begin the process and let the Android Flash Tool install the new November monthly OTA security update to my Pixel 7 Pro. We're going to let the script run through to completion so it's doing all of the major work for us.

Once we see the Pixel 7 or Pixel 7 Pro has rebooted with the new OTA update, let's go ahead and download the same firmware that we just installed. This is downloaded from the same Google Factory Images website that we just used. We'll just be clicking the link labeled "link" instead of 'flash' to download the firmware to our computer.

Now we're going to root the phone just like we did the first time. This means extracting the contents of the firmware so we can grab the init_boot.img file, patching it with Magisk, copying the patched file back to the PC and then flashing it in Fastboot Mode. Again, the same way we did when we first rooted the phone.

Once all of that work is done, we can reboot our phone from Fastboot Mode back into the Android system and see that we have root access to our phone again, and all of our personal data is still there.

And that completes the tutorial here today. We have installed a new monthly security OTA update (november's update in this example) while keeping all of our data and gaining root access again. Now you can go in and enable your magisk mods that you previously disabled.


Mentioned Links
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Google Factory Images - https://developers.google.com/android...
Pixel 7 Fastboot Mode -    • Easy Google Pixel 7 Fastboot Mode Tut...  
Pixel 7 Root Tutorial -    • New Google Pixel 7 Root Tutorial with...  
USB Debugging Mode -    • Enabling USB Debugging Mode on Androi...  
Developer Mode -    • How to Enable Developer Mode on ALL G...  



Step by Step Tutorial
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1. Intro [00:00]
2. Disable all Magisk Modules [01:00]
3. Setup the Android Flash Tool for the new update [02:44]
4. Configure the Flash Tool options [04:06]
5. Wait for the new firmware to install [06:16]
6. Let the Pixel 7 reboot [11:07]
7. Patch the init_boot.img file with Magisk [12:20]
8. Flash the patched file in Fastboot Mode [14:30]
9. Confirm that the phone is rooted again [16:54]


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