How to Unlock Bootloader on OnePlus 7 Pro

Both the OnePlus 7 and OnePlus 7 Pro have been selling like hotcakes all over the globe, with the latter one being the company’s best flagship till date. The OnePlus 7 Pro comes with a fully bezel-less display, covering 6.67 inches on the front with a Liquid AMOLED display, in other words, the phone comes with an incredibly quick refresh rate of 90 Hz. Couple that with top of the line internal specifications like the Snapdragon 855 and up to 12 Gigs of RAM, the OnePlus 7 Pro might as well be the fastest and the most smooth smartphone to exist.

The OnePlus 7 Pro comes baked in with OxygenOS 9 running atop Android 9.0 Pie, with a guaranteed update to Android Q as soon as that’s stable released. While OnePlus doesn’t stop its end-user customers from tampering with the device’s software and firmware, you still need to be cautious when you dive deep into the Android ecosystem. Thankfully, we have an up and running guide on how you can unlock the bootloader on the OnePlus 7 Pro. The procedure is extremely simple, and you can read all about it down below.

What does Unlocking your Bootloader mean?

Before we proceed to unlock your device’s bootloader, let’s take a quick second to hover over what unlocking a bootloader really means. When your device comes from the OEM, it is deprived of any console control by the user. This means you cannot tamper with the software and the things inside the UI on your own just yet. However, by unlocking the device’s bootloader, you are granting yourself access to parts of your phone that were otherwise impossible to get to previously. This process requires a Windows computer with an ADB interface that can talk to your device in the fastboot mode. The most common ways of unlocking a bootloader include using a tool or using fastboot commands directly to ingest the codes inside of your phone.

Why should you Unlock your Bootloader?

There are a plethora of reasons as to why you might want to unlock your device’s bootloader. For instance, you can install custom recoveries like TWRP or CWM on your phone’s recovery partition which grants access to a lot more things furthermore. You can easily root an Android device with an unlocked bootloader, and as we know, a rooted device has many cool features you can play around with. Lastly, you will need a fully unlocked bootloader to flash any custom ROMs or zips on your device. Basically, you are granting yourself system rights by tampering with the state of your device’s bootloader – in a good way.

Unlocking your bootloader also means you can troubleshoot a lot more issues than ever before. For example, if your device goes into a bootloop, or a soft brick, then the first step to revive it requires you to unlock its bootloader. Moreover, you can use powerful root applications like Magisk and Xposed Framework to sideload some really amazing third-party extensions that will boost your device’s capabilities.

With everything out of the way, let’s begin with our guide. You will be needing a few prerequisites in order to unlock your phone’s bootloader first. Make sure you have everything that you need up and running. Without any further delay, let’s have a look at how you can unlock the bootloader on your device.

How to Unlock Bootloader on OnePlus 7 Pro

Make sure to follow the pre-requisite and install the drivers on your PC before proceeding to unlock bootloader.

Prerequisites

• You need ADB and Fastboot tool installed on your PC for this to work. If you haven’t already, follow our comprehensive guide to learn how you can ready up ADB and Fastboot on your Windows PC.
• Make sure that you backup everything there is on your phone. Unlocking your device’s bootloader will wipe everything on your phone, including media. We recommend a thorough backup before beginning this process.
• Download the latest OnePlus USB Drivers and install on your PC.
• Ensure that your phone has at least 60% of the battery prior to beginning this process to avoid any unforeseen shutdowns in the middle of the task.
• Lastly, you need a data transfer cable to connect your phone to your Windows PC.

Procedure

1. On your OnePlus 7 Pro, navigate to Settings > About Phone and tap on Build Number 7 times until a popup says you have enabled the Developer Settings. Head back to the Settings page, and tap on Developer Options. Here, tap to enable OEM Unlock as well as USB Debugging.
2. On your Windows computer, inside the ADB and Fastboot folder, open a command prompt window by pressing the right mouse button while holding down the shift key, now select the open a command prompt window option.
3. Connect your OnePlus 7 Pro to your computer using a data cable. Tap on Allow if a prompt shows up on your smartphone to authorize the computer. Use the following ADB command to ensure your computer has recognized your OnePlus 7 Pro :

   adb devices

4. If everything has worked out, you should see your device connected with a serial identifier right next to it. Now, execute the following command to reboot your OnePlus 7 Pro into the Bootloader mode :

   adb reboot bootloader

5. Your phone should now boot into the fastboot mode. Enter the following command to start the bootloader unlocking process :

   fastboot oem unlock

6. On your OnePlus 7 Pro, use the volume up/down keys to navigate to the Unlock the Bootloader option, and select it using the power button.
7. Your phone will now be unlocked and will reboot to system.

That’s all! We hope our guide on how to unlock bootloader on OnePlus 7 Pro has helped you out. If you have any queries, then leave a comment below and we will be happy to assist you!

OnePlus 7 Pro Specification: Overview

The OnePlus 7 Pro comes with a bigger 6.7-inch Fluid AMOLED QHD+ curved display without any notch or bezels. It has a screen resolution of 3120×1440 pixels which offers 516PPI for better and crisp visibility. It’s worth mentioning that the screen features a 90Hz refresh rate for a real-time response while gaming and browsing. While the handset is powered by the latest flagship Snapdragon 855 SoC coupled with Adreno 640 GPU.

It comes in three variants of 6GB RAM+128GB storage, 8GB RAM+256GB storage, and 12GB RAM+256GB storage options. Now, talking about the camera department, it has a single 16MP of pop-up selfie camera and a triple rear camera setup on the back side. The primary 48MP (f/1.6) Sony IMX586 sensor + 16MP (f/2.2) Ultra-Wide sensor of a 117-degree view + an 8MP telephoto (f/2.4) lens that supports OIS with 3x optical zoom. Additionally, the rear camera setup does have an LED flash. The rear camera supports HDR, AI Portrait, Night Sight Mode, PDAF, EIS, OIS, etc.