The Motorola E is one of HTC’s most popular flagship Android models.

What is needed to root the Motorola Moto E?

To root the Motorola E you will need the following.

• The Motorola E you want to root in your hand.
  
• A PC.
  

Disclaimer

KnowIT is not responsible for rooting the Android device in any way. Before performing any of these steps make sure you back up your Android device completely.

Step 1 – Unlock the Motorola Moto E bootloader

To root the Motorola E you first need to go to the Motorola website and unlock the bootloader of the phone. Until you do that rooting cannot take place.

You can start the bootloader unlock process here.

Follow the steps to unlock the bootloader – THIS WILL DELETE ALL DATA ON THE DEVICE SO BACKUP BEFORE PROCEEDING!

Step 2 - Install the Android SDK on to your PC

In order to use Fastboot you need to install the Android SDK on to your PC.  You can do so by following this guide here.

Make sure that you put the SDK folder in an easy to find location (e.g. C:\Android\SDK).

Once you have done that you will have C:\Android\SDK\Platform-Tools.

Step 3 – Install TWRP recovery on to the Motorola Moto E

In order to install SuperSU and root the Motorola E you must install TWRP recovery on to the device first. This can only be done if you have successfully unlocked the Motorola E bootloader in the previous step.

You can download TWRP from here.

After you have downloaded the TWRP recovery make sure it is called TWRP.img – you will need this file later.

Step 4 – Use Fastboot to flash TWRP to the Motorola E

Copy the TWRP.img file from step 3 to C:\Android\SDK\Platform-Tools which is where you installed the Android SDK from step 2.

After that you now need to first put the Motorola Moto E in Fastboot mode.

To do this follow these steps.

1. Power off the Motorola Moto  E completely.
   
2. Hold down the power, volume up and volume down at the same time.
   
3. If you have done it correctly the phone will turn on in to recovery mode.
   
4. Make sure ‘Fastboot’ is selected and then press the power button to confirm.
   
5. Connect the Motorola Moto E to your PC using the USB cable.
   
6. Open up a command prompt in C:\Android\SDK\Platform-Tools and  where you saved TWRP from the previous step.
   
7. Type ‘fastboot flash recovery twrp.img’ (no quotes) and press Enter. The TWRP file will be flashed to the Motorola Moto E.
   
8. Once it has finished restart the Motorola Moto E.
   

Step 5 – Root the Motorola Moto E

Now that you have successfully unlocked the Motorola E bootloader and flashed the TWRP image file to the phone it is time to root the phone.

To do this you first need to download the SuperSU zip file which is located here.

Save this to your computer in a safe place.

Connect the Motorola Moto E to your PC and copy the SuperSU zip file you just downloaded to the Motorola Moto E (for example, to the Downloads folder).

Once you have done that turn off the Motorola Moto E completely. It is time to flash SuperSU and root the phone which is done using the following steps.

• Power off the Motorola Moto E completely.
  
• Put the Motorola Moto E in Fastboot mode as given in the previous step.
  
• When the Motorola Moto E boots up select RECOVERY from the list. The Motorola Moto E will restart and the TWRP recovery menu will appear. 
  
• Tap Install.
  
• Browse to wherever you saved the SuperSU zip file you downloaded and copied to the Motorola Moto E.
  
• Confirm that you want to flash the selected zip file.
  
• Once done choose the Reboot option in TWRP to reboot the Motorola Moto E.
  

Once the Motorola Moto E reboots, to verify the phone has been rooted properly, simply look for the SuperSU application icon.

Once you see this you have successfully rooted the Motorola Moto E.