How to root Android 11 using Magisk

The much-awaited Android 11 update is now available for compatible devices and is slated for release for more devices from multiple OEMs in the near future. In this, we shall see how to root Android 11 using Magisk.

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Step 1. Unlock your device bootloader.

Before proceeding with this tutorial, you need to make sure that your android device running Android 11 has an unlocked bootloader.

Due to the diverse nature of the Android device family, covering how to unlock the bootloader of each device is impossible and out of the scope of this article. Below are a few guides you might want to take a look at if you want help with unlocking the bootloader of your device.

The above guides are meant to give a head start if you have not unlocked your device. You can get more detailed guides on how to unlock the bootloader on your Android device by doing a simple google search. Do take a backup of your device before proceeding.

Step 2. Get Your Device’s Boot Image

Unlike the older days where you can simply flash the magisk zip file to root your device, things have changed quite a bit now. Google has tightened up security on Android and this means that there is no ‘one step’ solution to root Android. Nonetheless, this is also a fairly straightforward method.

In this step, you need to get the boot.img file which is usually found in the Android software firmware zip file of your device. The firmware zip files contain multiple files and boot.img is one of them.

The best bet to get your hands on the firmware zip file is your device manufacturer website. For example, Google provides factory images for its device via an online portal. Even if there is no official way to get it, don’t worry, the internet is magical and probably there is a developer who uploaded it on XDA! As I always say, do a simple Google search.

Step 3. Patch Your Device Boot Image with Magisk Manager

Download the latest Magisk Manager APK from GitHub.
Install it on your Android device just like you would install any other APK file. Once the APK file is downloaded, simply tap on it to install.
Copy the boot.img file from the previous step to your Android device.
Open Magisk Manager > Tap on the Settings icon in the top right > Click on the Update channel and choose Beta or Canary.
Go back > Tap Install > choose Select and Patch a File > Now, navigate and browse the boot.img file you had copied to your device earlier > Tap on Let’s Go.

Now magisk will take care of everything and the patched boot.img file will be available in the same folder where you had the actual boot.img file.

Step 4. Flash the Patched boot.img File on to your device

You need to have ADB and Fastboot setup on your computer for this. Below are few guides that can help:

Download and Install ADB and Fastboot on Windows
Install ADB and Fastboot on Linux | Guide
Setup System-Wide ADB and Fastboot on Windows
Allow USB Debugging | Authorize ADB Commands on Android – This is an important step to make sure that your phone and computer are communicating properly via ADB/Fastboot.

Assuming that you have successfully setup ADB and Fastboot on your computer, let us get back to business.

For the sake of this tutorial, I am going to assume that the ADB and Fastboot are installed in the folder called ‘adb‘.

Remember the patched boot.img file from the last step? Transfer that patched boot.img file from your phone to your computer. To make this easier for you, copy it to the folder where you have ADB and Fastboot installed. In my case, it is C:\adb
Open command line/PowerShell/Terminal window (depending on the OS) from inside the folder where ADB and Fastboot are installed. Here’s how to do this:
- Windows: Go to the folder where ADB and Fastboot are installed > In the address bar at the top – simply type cmd and press Enter.
- Linux/Mac: Open a terminal window and use the below command to change the directory to the ADB and Fastboot folder:
  cd /path/to/adb
Connect your Android device to the computer using a USB cable.
Reboot your device into bootloader mode by executing this command: adb reboot bootloader
Once the device boots into fastboot mode, make sure fastboot is working fine by executing this command: fastboot devices
The above command should list the device connected via fastboot. If you see a device is listed, we are good.
Execute this command to flash the patched boot.img file onto your device: fastboot flash boot magisk_patched_boot.img
Make sure you are using the right name of the patched boot.img file.
Once the flashing process completes, reboot your device using this command: fastboot reboot

Aaaaand your device is now rooted. Android 11 Root is still more of a work in progress and we will see constant improvements in the process as time goes by. Be sure to follow the Magisk developer topjohnwu for any updates on the progress of Magisk development.