We’ve already showed you how to unlock the bootloader and flash a custom recovery, and now it’s time to show you how to root Motorola Droid Turbo smartphones. Those of you who just want to take complete backups with the NANDroid backup feature and install custom ROMs can probably get that done with just your new recovery. You won’t necessarily need root access for that, since most custom ROMs only require you to have a custom recovery. However, if you are into installing the new apps from the Google Play Store and other sources around the web, you’ll want root access.

Here’s how to root Motorola DROID Turbo smartphones:

REQUIREMENTS

• Use this guide to root Verizon Droid Turbo on Android 5.1 (Lollipop) with build number SU4TL-44. You can check your build number by tapping the Menu > Settings > About Device and looking on the display where it says the same. It’s the up-to-date number at the time of writing this guide, so check for any OTA updates if you do not see it there in your About Device section.

BEFORE WE BEGIN

• Make sure you have unlocked the bootloader on your Motorola Verizon DROID Turbo smartphone before you start the guide for granting the rooting permission.
• Make sure you have installed a custom recovery on the Motorola Verizon DROID Turbo smartphone before you follow the guide for rooting below.

HOW TO ROOT MOTOROLA DROID TURBO

1. Download the SuperSU for your Droid Turbo from this link.
2. Connect the Droid to the computer with the USB cable.
3. Copy the SuperSU over to the root of the internal storage SD card.
4. Unplug your Droid from the computer.
5. Turn off the Droid and reboot it up in bootloader mode. You can get that done by holding the Volume Down and pressing the Power buttons. Wait until you can see the green Android logo with his chest open to know that you are in the bootloader mode.
6. From the bootloader mode menu, use the Volume keys to scroll through the list and stop when you have the Recovery mode highlighted.
7. Press the Power button just once and it will confirm you want to enter the Recovery mode.
   – this will be the custom recovery since you flashed a custom recovery over the original stock recovery. There’s no way to use the stock recovery at the moment.
8. Wait for the TWRP recovery to boot up and for it to ask if you want to allow it to have write access. Make sure you do allow that same write access for the system partition or else the rest of the guide will not work.
9. Tap on the ‘Install’ button from the main TWRP recovery menu and browse the SD card for that SuperSU zip file you copied earlier.
   – this SuperSU file must still be in zip format or else it will not flash.
10. Swipe from the bottom of the screen and confirm you want to install the SuperSU from the confirmation bar.
11. Once done, tap on the ‘reboot System’ option from the main recovery menu.

Your Motorola Droid Turbo by Verizon is now rebooting back in normal mode and you can start using your device with the custom recovery and root access granted.