How to flash Android Oreo on your Pixel and Nexus devices

Android O has been released and been dubbed the expected “Oreo”. Android Oreo brings about a plethora of new features to the Android environment and the update should start rolling out for Pixel and Nexus devices in a while via OTA. For those who cannot wait to experience Oreo, we will show you how to flash the final build of Android O on your device.

Before you start with the process, remember that flashing is always a risk and we do not take any responsibility for any damage occurring to your devices. The phones being supported for the flashing process are: Nexus 5X, Nexus 6P, Nexus Player, Pixel C, Pixel and Pixel XL.

There are two ways to get your hands on the Android Oreo. The first one involves a simple registration into the beta program and the second one involves manually flashing the Android O image onto your device.

In order to experience Android Oreo directly without much hassle, you can enroll in the Android Beta program here. Sign in with your credentials and your eligible devices will be visible. Click on a button to enroll your device in the program. After a while, the enrolled device should have a notification displaying the availability of a beta update. Just go through with the update and you should have Android O on your device.

Requirements before you get started with Android O:

• A compatible Nexus or Pixel device, as stated in the above list of supported phones along with a proper USB cable to connect it to your PC. Also, the Android SDK needs to be installed on your machine with ADB and Fastboot command working. Follow the tutorial here to do this.
• Next, you need to download the appropriate factory image for your device. Go to this website to download them. Make sure the image being downloaded is the right one, compatible with your device.
• You need to unlock your bootloader for flashing the image. Take note, this process will erase all your data and it is better to backup all your data beforehand.

Unlock your bootloader:
In order to flash the image, your bootloader needs to be unlocked. If you have never unlocked your bootloader before, follow these steps below. Unlocking the bootloader will delete all your personal data by resetting the phone, so backup all your data before this process.

1. First off, you will need to enable developer options on your device if you haven’t already. To do so, you head to ‘About Phone’ in settings and tap seven times on the Build Number.
2. Next, enable USB debugging and OEM unlock on your Nexus/Pixel device under  Developer options.
3. Plug in your phone to your computer via a USB cable now and open a command window (CMD) on the PC.
4. Enter the following command in the CMD to boot your Pixel device into bootloader mode: “adb reboot bootloader” (type in yes if any permissions are asked)
5. Your device should boot into bootloader mode. Now, type a command: “fastboot flashing unlock”.
6. You should now get a confirmation screen. Press Volume Up to select yes and press the power button to select it. The bootloader unlocking process will now begin.
7. Once unlocked, your phone will again reboot into bootloader mode. Now in your command window, type “fastboot reboot”.
8. Your device will go through a factory reset during this reboot and your bootloader should now be unlocked.

Flashing Android Oreo:
Now comes the actual flashing part. Make sure to follow the instructions exactly as directed or things may go wrong. Here are the instructions:

1. You need to be in the bootloader menu and make sure your PC and phone are communicating properly. Type “fastboot devices” without quotes to test this and if it returns your device’s serial number, it's all good. If not, you should Google some more on this issue with your particular device name to troubleshoot it.
2. Now, you need to extract the image you downloaded earlier using a zip extractor such as 7zip and extract the .tgz file you downloaded. Once again use 7zip to extract the .tar file from the .tgz. After this process, there should be a folder with several files in it.
3. Copy and paste all of these files in the platform-tools folder in the Android SDK on your computer. By default, the SDK is in C<Program Files (x86) on Windows.
4. There are two flash-all files, one for Windows and other for Linux. If you’re on Windows, run the “Windows Batch File”. If you’re on Linux, you’ll want to double click the flash-all.sh.
5. At this point, a dialogue box should pop up and the installation should begin. Do not disconnect your device from the PC during this process as it may brick your device.
6. Once the installation process is finished, you will see your device booting into the Android O boot animation start up. You have now successfully flashed Android O on your device.

That's it. If you have gone through the instructions as mentioned, you should be successfully running Android O on your device. If by any chance, this did not work for you, try and figure out what went wrong and revisit the flashing process accordingly and also check for additional information on our geek website here.