The official factory Image for Android 5.1 Lollipop is made readily available for the Nexus 5 smartphone. The new 5.1 software update keeps the same great features we already know from 5.0 Lollipop and brings in several more including the new Device protection. Now, even if your device is stolen and a thief has your device unlocked, a factory reset will not allow them to take over your phone because they’ll have to sign in through your Google account–information they don’t have. Apart from that, there’s several system tweaks and performance enhancements that make it a great deal more stable compared to the older version of Lollipop. If you want all that Lollipop and more you can check out how to install the factory image from below and skip the OTA waiting line.

REQUIREMENTS

There’s a different factory image available for each nexus device. You can only install the file attached below on the nexus 5 and no other device. You’ll risk bricking.

BEFORE WE BEGIN

• Those of you with a rooted Nexus smartphone will lose the rooting privileges and any custom ROM is wiped along with it. Furthermore, you’ll need to perform a full factory reset before flashing the official stock firmware file.
• Those of you coming from stock Android without any root access don’t need to take the factory reset.
• You should backup your phone using the built-in backup feature,. or by installing any number of third-party applications available from the Google Play Store.
• The guide will ask you to ‘unlock bootloader’ during the steps. Those with the unlocked bootloader already don’t lose any data during this stage.
• You will want to use a Windows PC to set up the Android SDK from our guide. However, the factory image file comes with a unique file inside for each operating system including Windows, Mac and Linux. Therefore, if you already have Android SDK with ADB and Fastboot setup, you can still use our guide and just skip installing Android SDK once more.
• Make sure you start the guide with enough battery power to last through to the end. You don’t want it turning off until the flashing is done.
• Install the Google Nexus USB Drivers from our page here. You’ll need to install them and then restart the computer for them to start working.
• Setup ADB and fastboot for Windows here if you haven’t got it already.

HOW TO INSTALL THE ANDROID 5.1 LMY47D FACTORY IMAGE IN THE GOOGLE NEXUS 5 SMARTPHONE

1. Download the Nexus 5 (Hammerhead) Android 5.1 factory Image from here.
2. Connect the Nexus 5 (codenamed Hammerhead) to the computer with the USB cable.
3. Now power down the phone completely.
4. Boot it back up holding down the Power button, Volume Down and the Volume Up buttons at the same time to enter fastboot and bootloader mode.
5. Extract the official firmware zip file on the desktop.
6. Transfer the file over to the /platform-tools directory.
7. There are three unique files inside, one for each OS. Choose the right one to flash for yours.
8. Windows users want the flash-all.bat”, Linux users want the “flash-all.sh” file and Mac users want the same “flash-all.sh” for the terminal.

Wait until the flashing finishes and you’re done. Congrats! You are now rocking a Nexus 5 with the latest version of Android available for any device out there as of today.