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How To Unlock the Nexus bootloader

If you’re planning on rooting and hacking your Nexus device you’ll need to unlock the bootloader first. It’s a good idea to do this straight away as the process will completely wipe your storage.

Install the SDK
Download the Android SDK to your desktop computer from developer.android.com/sdk/index.html. Open a command line or Terminal window and use the cd command to change the directory to
the platform-tools directory in the SDK download folder.

Enter the command
Connect your Nexus (you’ll need drivers for Windows from developer.android.com/sdk/win-usb) and
boot into fastboot mode by holding the power and volume down keys. The command to unlock is fastboot oem unlock. On a Mac or Linux machine it is ./fastboot oem unlock.

Check it’s unlocked
The process will now begin. It will only take a few seconds, but make sure you don’t interrupt it. Once done you can reboot your device. On the boot screen you should now see an unlocked padlock icon – this means the unlocking was a success.