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installing crdroid on a samsung galaxy a51 2026

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A complete guide on installing crDroid on the Samsung Galaxy A51 (SM-A515F), revive your old slow Samsung phone or de-google it.

installing crdroid on a samsung galaxy a51 2026
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Warning

  • Data on the phone will be formatted during this process! Make sure to backup your important files!
  • This will void the warranty on your phone.
  • Doing anything wrong could permanently brick your device.
  • crDroid is devliverd without Google services, you have to install it yourself in case you want it.

I am not responsible for any damage caused to your device!

This guide is based on my own experience installing crDroid on my Samsung Galaxy A51 (SM-A515F) and has been tried out successfully on 2 devices. This guide is written and tested in august 2026 for crDroid running Android 16. Any future changes could potentially alter the installation process, so be careful!

Required Tools

  • Old Samsung A51 (data will be wiped)
  • Windows Computer with odin3 or Linux Computer with odin4
  • USB C cable with data transfer
  • Android tools with fastboot & adb

note: I used a Linux computer with CachyOS, but it should be similar on Windows, but it may need some tweaking. AI can be very helpful for this kind of transition

Step 1: Fetching required files

Stock Samsung Firmware

This is available via multiple download tools: samloader, bifrost, …

I used samloader, an app to download the firmware for the Samsung A51. You have to provide the model name (SM-A515F (-> on the back of your phone)) & a regional code. I noticed that not all codes worked, but the code for the UK (BTU) worked fine.

You’ll receive a zip file, extract it & look for the AP_…tar.md5 file (around 5GB big), this is the only file we need.

note: samloader is currently unmaintained, it is recommended to use bifrost instead.

Magisk APK

You can install the APK on GitHub and only on GitHub! Don’t install it somewhere else!

I recommend installing it on your PC & pushing it via ADB to your phone later.

crDroid ROM

On the crDroid website you can find the official ROMs for your device. Download both the ROM zip file and the corresponding recovery.img.

Odin3 (Windows) / Odin4 (Linux)

This is the tool that will actually flash the ROM to your phone. The Windows application is a GUI application, but for Linux, there is a CLI version of it called odin4.

Step 2: Unlocking the Bootloader

This step is necessary to install custom software on your phone.

  1. Go into settings -> ‘About phone’ -> ‘Software information’
  2. Find ‘Build number’ & tap it 7 times to enable ‘Developer options’.
  3. Go back to settings & you’ll see ‘Developer options’ at the bottom.
  4. In ‘Developer options’, enable ‘OEM unlocking’ & ‘USB debugging’.
  5. Power off the phone
  6. Hold Volume Up + Volume Down & plug in the USB cable connected to your computer.

note: this will show a teal (scary looking) warning screen.

If done right, you’ll see 3 options, we want to unlock the device:

  1. Long-press volume up to select the device unlocking mode
  2. Confirm by long-pressing volume up again.

Your phone will reboot & show a warning screen every time you boot, this is normal.

note: it will now factory reset your phone.

Step 3: Patch the boot image with Magisk

Extract the stock boot image

Extract boot.img.lz4 from the AP_*.tar.md5 archive on your computer and decompress it:

tar -xf AP_A515F*.tar.md5 boot.img.lz4
lz4 -d boot.img.lz4 boot.img

Install Magisk & Patch boot.img

If you already downloaded the Magisk APK on your computer, install it via adb:

adb install Magisk-<version>.apk

Push boot.img to the phone:

adb push boot.img /sdcard/Download/

Open the Magisk app on your phone:

  1. Tap Install on the top card.
  2. Choose Select and Patch a File.
  3. Select the boot.img file in your Downloads folder.

Magisk will generate a magisk_patched-*.img file. Pull it back to your computer and rename it:

adb pull /sdcard/Download/magisk_patched-*.img boot.img

Step 4: Build the flash archive

Odin expects precise file names in a tar archive. Put the patched boot.img and the downloaded recovery.img into the same folder and package them:

tar -H ustar -c boot.img recovery.img > a51_flash.tar

Step 5: Flash via Odin

Put the phone in download mode

While the phone is plugged into the computer, put it into download mode:

  1. Turn off / reboot the phone
  2. Hold Volume Up + Volume Down & plug in the USB cable connected to your computer.
  3. Press (don’t hold!) the Volume Up button once to enter download mode.

It will indicate on the screen that it is in download mode.

Flash the ROM

Linux (Odin4 CLI):

sudo odin4 -a a51_flash.tar

Windows (Odin3 GUI): (I haven’t tested this on Windows, so I’m not 100% sure this would work)

  1. Open Odin3 as Administrator.
  2. Click the AP button and select a51_flash.tar.
  3. Click Start.

Step 6: Boot into recovery

  1. Leave the USB cable plugged into your computer!
  2. Hold down Power + Volume Down for 7ish seconds to force a reboot.
  3. As soon as the screen goes black, hold down the Volume Up button & keep holding the Power button.

If everything went right, you should see the recovery menu from crDroid.

Step 7: Wipe data & sideload crDroid ROM

Wipe data

Navigate via the volume keys to ”Factory Reset” > ”Format data”

Sideload crDroid

Go back to the main menu & select ”Apply Update” > ”Apply from ADB“.

On your computer:

adb sideload crDroidAndroid-*.zip

Finally, select ”Reboot system now” in the recovery menu to reboot into crDroid. This should successfully boot into crDroid & you should see the setup wizard. From thereon, have fun.

Troubleshooting

If anything goes wrong or there is an error in this tutorial, don’t hesitate to contact me. AI can also be useful, if nudged in the right direction.

If you have any issues with vbmeta, reference this GitHub issue

I am not responsible for any damage caused to your device!

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