The last version of Android to date, Android 12 , has been circulating for months in the form of previous versions for developers, betas and later its source code, but yesterday the final version, the stable one, was finally released. Android 12 accompanied the Google Pixel 6 in the video that Google aired at its event on October 19, and it is only a matter of time before all compatible mobiles end up receiving it.
As is often the case in the Android ecosystem, the company’s Pixel phones were the first to receive the update . Specifically, the models from the Google Pixel 3 onwards. So now we are going to show you how to update your mobile phone to Android 12 (as long as the update for your model is already available, of course) in a few simple steps.
How to update using OTA
As we have said, Android 12 has already been officially released for Google Pixel phones starting with Pixel 3, and it is a matter of time before the different manufacturers finish adapting their respective layers and announce the definitive update to the new version. While that happens, we will tell you how you can update your mobile phone to Android 12 (if it is compatible, of course).
To update to Android 12 we have to go to the settings of our phone and then enter the ” System” section , which we will find almost at the end of the list. Once we are inside, we will look for the option called “System Update” grouped under ” Advanced” . Just below we can see the version that our phone carries at the moment.
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Once we enter “System update” , click ” Check for updates ” and the phone will connect with Google’s servers to try to locate the latest version of Android available, and if Android 12 is waiting for us, it will offer to update us automatically. The button to update is called ” Download and install” and is located after the text that tells us what the update available to us contains.
When you press it, your phone will start downloading the update to later tell us that we have to ” Restart now” by means of a button. Once the phone reboots and the applications have adapted correctly, we will have Android 12 running through the veins of our smartphone.
Let’s review:
- Settings
- System
- Advanced
- Upgrade system
- Search for updates
How to install Android 12 on a Pixel from the computer
Android 12 Factory Images
If what we want is to install the Android 12 ROM from the browser, instead of going through the classic system update, we can do it if we have a Pixel that is included among the compatible models. Let’s remember, from the Pixel 3 onwards. For this we will have to download the Android USB driver on our Windows computer and have Chrome, Opera or Microsoft Edge. We download the driver, unzip it, right click on “android_winusb.inf” and choose “Install” from the menu.
With this method, we will download the Android 12 factory images directly from Google’s servers to our phone.
With that done, we turned on USB debugging and OEM unlocking on our phone. The two options are available in the “Options for developers” that we will activate in the ” Information about the device” section of the “Settings” of the phone. We will click several times on “Build number” until the system warns us. Then, we will find the “Developer options” in the Settings, we will enter and activate “Debugging by USB” and “OEM Unlocking”.
Once this is done, and when we connect the phone to the computer through the USB cable, we can start flashing. The method is simple. We will have to go to the Google Flashtool website that we will find at this link . Inside we will have download links for each available version of the system , starting with the Pixel 3 and ending with the Pixel 5 (the Pixel 6 will arrive with Android 12 already installed).
We click on the version corresponding to our phone and we will authorize the browser to carry out certain actions, such as communicating with our phone through ADB: ” Allow site access to your ADB keys in order to communicate with devices” . In the next window we will choose “Add new device” and our Pixel should appear to select. Once this is done, the web will offer us an “Install” button and we will only have to wait for the process to finish without disconnecting the USB cable from the phone at any time. Be patient as we are talking about heavy ROMs.
