The Google Nexus 7 is now running Android 5.1 Lollipop with LMY47O firmware build if you have accepted the official OTA notification to update. Doing so makes you lose root access you had before so you’ll have to learn how to do that again. There’s where this guides comes into play. Follow the steps below to open the Nexus 7 system internals away from the Google restrictions in place so you can install a custom ROM and root-only apps.

REQUIREMENTS

• Only attempt this guide if you are using the Google Nexus 7 tablet. Don’t try it on any other Nexus tablet.
• You want to head over to the About Device menu and check that you’re running Android 5.1 software with the build number LMY47O. Only then should you follow this guide.

BEFORE WE BEGIN

• We recommend backing up your tablet data before starting. That way you can restore the data if something goes wrong and you must apply a factory reset. You don’t lose data just by following the guide naturally unless something goes wrong.
• Rooting your Nexus 7 voids the warranty. There’s no way around that. Unrooting the device can sometimes bring the warranty back to life. You’ll have to do more research into that for your device as they all have different conditions.
• You should download the Google USB Drivers to your Windows computer and then restart the computer for the same USB drivers to start working.  If you’ve updated them recently you should be fine without updating. Those rebooting the computer might want to bookmark this page and come back to it easily.

HOW TO ROOT NEXUS 7 ON LMY47O ANDROID 5.1 LOLLIPOP AND FLASH CLOCKWORKMOD RECOVERY

1. Download the following files to the desktop of the computer.
2. Download the Android SDK from the official page and follow this guide to install ADB and fastboot on Windows.
3. Download Fastboot for Windows and extract the fastboot to the same /platform-tools folder you setup with the ADB and fastboot guide.
4. Download ClockworkMod Recovery. Use the copy and paste feature to transfer it over to the /platform-tools folder.
5. Download SuperSU. Transfer the SuperSU over to the root of your SD card. You’ll need to connect to the computer to do that.
6. Unplug the Nexus 7 tablet now from the computer and completely power down the Nexus 7 tablet. Boot it back up now in Bootloader mode by pressing the Volume Down + Power buttons together.
7. Release the two button combination after you see the text on the display, this is Bootloader mode.
8. Open the /platform-tools folder you have from earlier and right-click in a white space and hold down the Shift key. Now choose to open the Command Prompt.
9. Type this command into the Command Line:
10. fastboot flash recovery recovery-clockwork-touch-6.0.4.7-flo.img
11. That will put your tablet in recovery mode. Now navigate down the recovery menu to “flash zip from SD card”, followed by “choose zip from SD card” and browse for the SuperSU file you transferred to the root storage.
12. Wait for the SuperSU file to finish flashing and then go back to the main recovery menu and select the “reboot system now’ option.