Frequently Asked Questions

What Android ROMs are supported?

Most of the devices are tested with LineageOS (official and some unofficial releases) as well as LineageOS for MicroG or PixelExperience when available. But you can use the OpenAndroidInstaller to install all kinds of custom Android ROMs.

A selection of different Android-based ROMs and where to find them:

My device is not supported. What can I do?

If your device is currently not supported, you have basically two options.

Contribute support for your device:

If you have some experience with flashing Android ROMs, you can find more details on how to contribute here: How to contribute?

Ask for support:

You can also open a github issue and ask for support for your device. There might be reasons, that your device is not supported and likely will not get support.

What are addons and which ones are supported?

Addons are optional, additional apps and services that are useful to have. Most notable Google Apps and Services as well as MicroG to replace them or the F-Droid FOSS App-Store.


There are different packages of *Google Apps* available.

You can find out more about MicroG here: MicroG. The recommended way to install MicroG is to use the zip file provided here: FriendlyNeighborhoodShane/MinMicroG_releases. The best way to get an installable zip for F-Droid can be found here: F-Droid App-Store.

How can I use Google Apps for my device?

While we don't like google apps, some people feel that they need them to leverage the full experience of their Android devices. We believe people should be free to do what they want with their devices. So installing them is supported as well.

It is still recommended to use ROMs with built-in Google Apps like PixelExperience.

What to do if something goes wrong?

Sometimes things will hang with showing "waiting-for-device" in the "Advanced output" view or fail to send the recovery or image to the device correctly.

What you can do in this case:

  • Try a different USB-Cable
  • Try a different USB-Port on your PC

Sometimes the selected ROM image will not boot properly. Usually, in this case, the image is not suited for the specific device or is broken.

What you can do in this case:

  • Make sure your device is supported by the image up to the exact device id.
  • Try a different image for your device. This is especially useful for unofficial images of ROMs.

Of course, there are other things that can go wrong. If non of the above helps, write an email or raise an issue on GitHub.

Will this tool unlock my bootloader?

First of all, this tool will not help you bypass any vender locked bootloaders in non-official ways.

Devices by Samsung, Google and Fairphone make it fairly easy to unlock the bootloader and receive good support in the installer.

Some devices with require manual steps to unlock the bootloader. In general you will need to create an account at a vendor website and receive some code from there. OpenAndroidInstaller will try to guide you as far as possible. These vendors include Sony, Motorola, Xiaomi and OnePlus among others.

Other phone vendors stops allowing to unlock the bootloader all together. There is nothing to be done if you didn't unlock your device in time. These vendors include Huawei and LG among others. Support for these vendors will always be very limited.

Virus scanners show the tool as a virus or trojan. What is going on?

In some virus scanners the OpenAndroidInstaller shows up as a virus or trojan. This is a false positive. We explain the issue here. The code and build process of the distributed files is completely open source and can be found on github. So people can verify that it's not malicious software.

The Installer is bundled and compiled python code made into an executable file. This is done with pyinstaller. As it turns out, false positive issues are known and people encounter them regularly.

As far as we know, there is no real solution to this issue.

When flashing the custom recovery, the applications hangs and the advanced output shows "waiting-for-device". What can I do?

It seems like sometimes fastboot (the tool used for flashing the recovery) doesn't work properly. A possible solution weirdly can be to try a different USB-cable and/or different USB-Ports.

Still having questions?