The unofficial TWRP recovery is a must on the LG G3 smartphone for all people looking to customize their devices with a custom recovery or firmware. There are two main sides to Android smartphones: stock official Android and those who open up the OS with root access. If you are wanting the latter you must install a custom recovery image to go with your custom ROM.

Both sets of recovery images are amazing, but the custom version does a lot more than just create a bootable partition for installing firmware and taking a factory reset. With the custom variant we can take a Nandroid backup of the OS, flashing zip files from the SD card and other operations.

REQUIREMENTS

The following only applies for the Sprint variant of the LG G3. It’s available for a few different phone carrier network in the United States, and many more across the globe. Do not flash the file in this post for any model that isn’t from Sprint. You can check your model number by navigating to Settings > About Phone.

BEFORE WE BEGIN

• Enable the USB Debugging option from the Developer Options menu.
• Do not start unless you have at least 50% battery power from the battery icon in the status bar.
• You must have the latest USB drivers for the device.
• Backup the current OS with third-party application such as helium, or if you have root access already you can install Titanium from Google Play.
• You can install a custom recovery image before or after having root access. It doesn’t matter which way you choose.
• You must have a Windows computer running Windows XP at the lowest.
• You should be an advanced Android user that knows how to setup Android SDK

HOW TO INSTALL TWRP RECOVERY ON THE LG G3 FROM SPRINT

1. Download the TWRP recovery file for the Sprint LG G3 here.
2. Install ADB and fastboot by downloading Android SDK.
3. Connect the smartphone to the computer with the USb cable.
4. Find the ADB folder.
5. Right-click the mouse and hold the Shift key on a white bank space in the folder.
6. Open the command prompt from the menu.
7. Type:
   – “adb shell”
   –  “su”
   –  “dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/block/platform/msm_sdcc.1/by-name/recovery”
   – use one line each and press the Enter key after each command.
8. Type:
   – “dd if=/sdcard/twrp-2.8.0.0_d850-signed.img of=/dev/block/platform/msm_sdcc.1/by-name/recovery”.
   – press enter after the command.

You have the TWRP recovery installed on your LG g3 smartphone. Now learn how to enter the recovery mode from your device.