This guide will show you how to root the Sony Xperia Z3. The Z3 is one of the newest additions to the Sony Xperia family. Rooting the phone is a little more technical than most but this guide will take you step by step through what is needed to get the Sony Xperia Z3 rooted.

Disclaimer

Digital Endpoint 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.

What is needed to root the Sony Xperia Z3?

In order to root the Sony Xperia Z3 you will need the following.

• The Sony Xperia Z3 you wish to root
  
• A PC
  

This guide only works if the Sony Xperia Z3 firmware version is D66XX.

To check the firmware version of the Sony Xperia Z3 before proceeding, on the phone, go to Settings > About Device and the device model will be listed.

THIS GUIDE WILL DELETE ALL DATA ON THE DEVICE – BACKUP BEFORE PROCEEDING

Rooting is done entirely by you at your own risk.

Step 1 – Set up the Android SDK on your PC

Before you can run the rooting tools on your PC to root the Sony Xperia Z3 you must first set up the Android development environment correctly.

In order to use Fastboot to root the Sony Xperia Z3 you must have the Android SDK downloaded and installed on to your computer.

We show you how to do that here.

Step 2 – Unlock the bootloader of the Sony Xperia Z3

To root the device the bootloader must be unlocked first.

To do that go here and follow the steps.

Once you have unlocked the bootloader proceed to the next step.

Step 3 – Download the root files needed to root the Sony Xperia Z3

Before you can root the Sony Xperia Z3 you must first download a custom recovery file which you can get from here.

 Extract the file to their own folder. Make sure you rename the CWM recovery file to boot.img.

Download SuperSU from here. Once downloaded to your PC save it to an easy to find location such as the desktop.

Step 4 – Enable USB debugging on the Sony Xperia Z3

Now that you have downloaded the correct root files for the Sony Xperia Z3 you need to enable USB debugging on the phone itself so that it is recognised by your PC when you plug it in and thus it can be rooted.

To enable USB debugging go to Menu > Settings > Developer Options > USB Debugging and make sure the option is checked.

You should still have the Sony Xperia Z3 connected to your PC at this point.

Step 5 – Root the Sony Xperia Z3

The final step is to root the Sony Xperia Z3. To do this you must open a command prompt window on your PC.  You must navigate on your PC to where you installed the Android SDK and go to the Platform-Tools folder where you can see the fastboot.exe file.

Inside that window hold down the shift key and right-click any empty space and choose Open command window here.

With the command prompt window open and the Sony Xperia Z3 connected to your PC type the following.

adb reboot bootloader

The Sony Xperia Z3 should restart in bootloader mode (make sure you have set up the Android SDK properly, in the command prompt window you have navigated to the folder where you installed the SDK files for ADB and the USB driver for the Sony Xperia Z3 has also been installed on your PC successfully).

With the Sony Xperia Z3 in bootloader mode, at the command prompt on your PC, type the following: 

fastboot flash boot boot.img

The Clockworkmod custom recovery file you renamed in step 3 will be flashed to the phone. Once done, in the command prompt window, type the following:

fastboot reboot

The Sony Xperia Z3 will reboot.

Now that the custom recovery has been flashed to the phone you now need to copy the SuperSU zip file on to the phone.

To do that, with the phone having booted up normally and being connected to your PC and recognised by Windows, browse to the root of the Sony Xperia Z3 SD card (e.g. the Downloads folder) and copy the SuperSU zip file from step 3 to there.

You now need to reboot the Sony Xperia Z3 in to the CWM recovery mode.

To do this follow these steps.

1. Make sure the Sony Xperia Z3 is powered off completely.
   
2. Hold down the volume up buttons and the power button together.
   
3. The Sony Xperia Z3 will boot up in to recovery mode.
   
4. Select the ‘Install zip’ option.
   
5. Select the ‘Choose zip from SDcard’ option.
   
6. Browse to where the SuperSU zip file is located.
   
7. Once selected the SuperSU zip file will be flashed to the phone.
   
8. Select ‘Reboot phone’ from the list to reboot the phone.
   

Now that the Sony Xperia Z3 has rebooted you should now find the SuperSU application within the list of all installed applications which means that you have successfully rooted the Sony Xperia Z3 phone.