✏ Fairphone 2 FPOS manual update (using Windows 10)

FAIRPHONE 2 manual update

I had to perform this manual update for several of my friend that found the official Fairphone 2 procedure to perform the manual update quite cumbersome.

I tried to make the instructions for Windows 10 easier to understand.
I also thought that a video might help visualize better the steps.

Hopefully, this will be useful for other people as well!

Instructions START from here

  1. Go to Fairphone support website. Download the latest “FP2 - Binary images of Fairphone OS” (the file are quite big: depending on your connection it might take a while!)

In the meantime put your phone in Fastboot mode.
(make sure that the phone BATTERY IS FULLY CHARGED)

  • Take away the battery. Count to 5. Put the battery back (or just shut down the FP2)
  • Press Volume down and keep it pressed
  • While still pressing volume down, also press Power
  • The phone will go in fastboot and will show:
    • a white FAIRPHONE logo in the middle and
    • a white writing POWERED BY android at the bottom
    • LED is flashing blue

The phone will be stuck on this view and will never change


  1. Open the folder where the file is downloaded, usually the “Downloads” folder
    (in Google Chrome you should click Show in folder).

  2. Right-click on the file fp2-gms-00.00.0-manual.zip and select
    Extract All…

  3. A new menu will open.
    Click on Extract. Close the window that appears!
    (if a window titled “Replace or Skip Files” appears, click
    Replace the files in the destination”).

  4. Now there are two folders with the same name.
    Double-click on the one with NO zip.

  5. Plug-in your phone with a DATA USB cable: In case you are not sure
    REPEAT the procedure from this point with a DIFFERENT USB CABLE!
    On the market, there is big number of USB cables that are only suited for charging your device, but not to connect it to a pc


- OPTIONAL -
Press the Windows key + R to bring up the Run dialog and type:
control printers.
A new windows will open. Scroll all the way down.
If you see a device called simply Android, your phone is connected.


  1. Double-click “flash-for-windows” in this new window and press the “ENTER” key
    Now you will right away see the message: Fairphone OS Manual Flashing Script After a couple of seconds, the script will start working.
    DO NOT unplug your phone

– If you get the message: “Do you want to look for a device again?” please, CLOSE the windows, make sure that your phone is plugged in properly and
go back to STEP 6.

– If your device is plugged in properly, please try a different USB cable and
go back to STEP 6.

  1. Once the script has ended it will ask you to press the “ENTER” key.

  2. ONLY After you press the key, your phone will restart. Now you can unplug it!

  • The first restart after manual upgrade will take between 5 and 10 minutes
  • After the phone restarts, you will see FP2 instead of Android

Frequent obstacles observed:

  • FP2 not found in fastboot: should this happen it can be the cable or USB port, however most often its a driver issue. To update the driver, connect the FP2 in fastboot mode to your PC, go to Windows Updates, search for updates, go to additional updates and driver and install all Google driver listed.

  • The script starts, but at one point stops with an error message grafik

If this happens, keep on trying over and over and over again. Most times it works after several (possible more than 10) attemps. Else another cable or PC might work.

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