The latest version of Android, Android Marshmallow, is often referred to as Android M. Android M comes with a lot of new cosmetic upgrades for the phones along with many bug fixes. Android M comes with new features like refined permissions, simplified volume controls, improved copy and paste function, Google Now on Tap, and Android Pay.
Not only that, it also has an built-in fingerprint scanning support and many other new enhancements which makes it a highly desired smartphone OS in 2016. Android M, being the desired smartphone OS used by the majority of the community, is almost a must-have for many of us.
Most of the smartphone companies roll out the latest version of Android with their product specific customizations via the air upgrades which means that once the customer gets an upgrade notification on his phone, he is just one touch away from upgrading to the latest Android.
Companies like Samsung, ASUS, Xiaomi, Karbon, Micromax, LG etc. provide their customers with the latest android- in this case Android Marshmallow- via Over the Air (OTA) upgrades.
To check if your phone has already received the upgrade, or will get the upgrade for Android M, you need to follow some guidelines which are listed below.
Prerequisites
You must have at least 2GB of free space on your device before attempting to upgrade the device.
This procedure is for supported phones only. If your device is not supported, forcefully upgrading the OS in a manual way can lead to bricking the phone, i.e. making the phone useless.
Your phone’s battery level must be 75% or above before starting the procedure of upgrading the OS, as multiple restarts may take place during upgradation.
We recommend you make a backup of all the data in your device and perform a factory reset after installing the upgrade in case of any data loss.
There are basically 2 methods you can use to download the file and upgrade to Android M.
Method 1
If your phone is connected to the internet, and you get the notification “System upgrade available” or any other notification similar to that, you can use this method:
Open the notification regarding the upgrade
Click on Yes/I Agree.
After this, the phone will take some time to download the upgrade, depending upon your internet speed.
Your phone will either switch off, upgrade on its own, or it might ask you to click on ‘Switch off and Upgrade’. This depends on the phone’s manufacturer.
The phone will restart and this time you will have the latest version of Android available for your device.
Method 2
If your phone doesn’t show up the notification for the upgrade of Android M but supports it, it means that you have to try the upgrade using this *****ernative method.
Check for the upgrade: Go to Settings>About Phone>System Upgrades>Check for Upgrade. If it comes up with an upgrade, you can use Step 1 to Step 4 from Method 1. If not, then continue this manual method.
USB debugging: Go to Settings>Developer Options>Enable USB debugging. If the phone doesn’t show Developer Options, go to Settings>About Phone>Tap 7 times on Build Number, and then go to Settings>Developer Options>Enable USB debugging.
Flash the System Image: This method will completely wipe all your data, including all media, contacts etc. So make sure you make a backup of anything you want to restore later.
Download the System image: Go to the Android developers website and download the version of Android M for your device, make sure you pick the right version which supports your device.
Download the Fastboot tool: This tool of the Android SDK can be found on the SDK Tools section of the Android studio page. Download the tools package for your respective desktop OS. Set up fastboot tool. You can visit this link to know how to do so: https://www.stechguide.com/how-to-install-adb-and-fastboot-on-windows/
Connect your device to your PC via the USB cable, and then boot into Fastboot mode as shown in the linked article.
If your device’s bootloader is locked, which it will be if you haven’t previously unlocked it, you must unlock it. Open a terminal window and type the command fastboot oem unlock.
This will wipe your device completely. You can skip this step if the bootloader is already unlocked.
Copy the fastboot app to the unzipped system image folder and enter this code at the command prompt:
cd [path to folder where fastboot is saved]
oem unlock bootloader
fastboot flash-all.bat
The phone will take some time to install the new OS, and once it restarts, you will have Android M ready and running on your phone.
Conclusion
Using these two different methods to upgrade a smartphone from its previous version to Android M, it’s possible to get Android Marshmallow on almost all the leading mobile phone manufacturers. Although, with the advent of new mobile makers every day, these methods might see changes, modifications or additions.