Install Official Android 4.3 Factory Image On Your Nexus Device Right Now
Following the announcement of the incremental Android 4.3 Jelly Bean update and its new features in today’s “Breakfast with Sundar Pichai” event, Google promised that the firmware would shortly begin rolling out via OTA to the Nexus 4, Nexus 10, Nexus 7 and Galaxy Nexus and later, to Google Play Edition devices as well. However, if you’re not one to be patient, or just want to take the shortest route from a custom ROM to the latest stock build, you can install the update this very instant using the official Nexus factory images that have just been pushed to the Google Developers website. Instructions and download link past the jump.
The steps involved to flash a factory image onto your Nexus device are quite simple, but they do have certain prerequisites. Read through the following carefully. If you get stuck anywhere, let us know in the comments section below.
Disclaimer: Follow this guide at your own risk. Although this is the official update released by Google itself, AddictiveTips will not be responsible for any data loss in case you haven’t made any backups, or any harm to your device as a result of following these instructions.
Requirements
- Nexus 4, Nexus 7, Nexus 10 or GSM/HSPA+ (maguro yakju/takju) variant of Galaxy Nexus with an unlocked bootloader. Read our guide on how to unlock the bootloader on Android devices
- Android 4.3 factory image for your Nexus device
- Android SDK installed on your PC computer, with the device drivers configured
Instructions
- A few precautions: backup the data on your internal SD card just in case, and if you happen to have a custom recovery (such as ClockworkMod or TWRP) installed, don’t forget to create a Nandroid backup before doing that so that it gets copied to your computer as well when backing up the internal storage.
- Extract the factory image you just downloaded using an archiving software such as 7-Zip, then extract the TAR file that it yields as well.
- Turn your device off, then boot into fastboot mode by holding down both Volume Up and Down buttons, and then, without letting go, holding down the Power button as well till you see the bootloader mode.
- Connect the device to your computer via USB. If the fastboot drivers need to be installed, they should get installed automatically at this stage, provided you had previously configured the drivers, as explained in our SDK guide linked above.
- Open the directory that you extracted in step 1 and run the ‘flash-all.bat’ batch file for Windows or enter ‘./flash-all.sh’ in Terminal on Linux.
That’s it – now just wait for the process to complete. When the flashing runs its course, your device should reboot to Android 4.3.
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Thanks, decided to try this on y Galaxy Nexus, still awaiting a Bifxie 4.3 Stock rooted deoxed ROM for my Nexus 4, so for now just playing and discovering features
Does not work for Galaxy Nexus on Sprint or Verizon
Yes; for Galaxy Nexus, it’s available for maguro variants (takju or yakju) only right now, as stated in the post. Both these variants are GSM/HSPA+ and available through Play Store. takju = US GSM/HSPA+ that ships with Google Wallet, while yakju = international GSM/HSPA+ that ships without Google Wallet; there are no other differences between the two. The Verizon variant is toro (mysid), while the Sprint one is toroplus (mysidspr). Since these are neither takju nor yakju, it (unsurprisingly) won’t work on them.