How to Upgrade from LineageOS 18.1 to Official LineageOS 19 Update?

LineageOS 19 official update got released this week which is based on Android 12L aka Android 12.1 update. If you’re running an official version of LineageOS 18.1 on your smartphone or tablet and it has been transitioned to version 19 then you’ll notice that the built-in updater is no longer working. You do not see any install button next to these updates that have been released and instead you can only tap the info that will tell you that the updater cannot be used to install this update.

The developers behind the LineageOS 19 ROM coded the updater in this way because it cannot switch between two major versions of Android. Instead, we need to manually sideload the LineageOS 19 update if you want to go from an official version of LineageOS 18.1 to the newly released version. In this article, we are going to show you how this upgrade is done without losing any of your personal data.

We will walk you through updating your phone from LineageOS 18.1 to the newly released LineageOS 19 using the official upgrade path. For this tutorial, we are using LineageOS Recovery but other custom recoveries like TWRP are likely going to work as well as those that have ADB side load features built-in.

However, there are some things that you need to have set up ahead of time like you need to go ahead and download the LineageOS 19 firmware that is built for your device. You also need to download Google apps package for Android 12 that also matches the CPU architecture of your device and for most of us that will be arm 64. Here is a link to the regular ARM package.

You need to take all of these files that have been downloaded and store them in the same folder on your PC as your ADB and Fastboot tools.

Here is a step-by-step guide on how to upgrade to the latest version of LineageOS:

Step 1:  Boot your device into recovery mode.

Step 2: Connect your phone to the pc with a USB cable.

Step 3: Download the LineageOS 19 firmware and Google apps package(arm 64) for your respective device.

Step 4: Copy and paste these two downloaded files into the ADB and Fastboot tools folder on your device. If you have not installed the ADB and Fastboot tools on your PC then follow the link to see the procedure.

Step 5: On your device, you need to go into the ADB sideload mode which means you need to tap on the “apply update” button.

Step 6: Then tap the “apply from ADB” button. You should see some text at the bottom telling you to use the ADB sideload command to continue.

Step 7: Open Windows PowerShell or command prompt on your PC and type out a command while your device is in recovery mode and connected to the PC.

Step 8: Type out the command adb sideload and then just start typing out the file name for LineageOS. Make sure that you type out the exact same file name of the LineageOS 19.1 firmware file that you downloaded.

Step 9: Press enter on the keyboard to continue.

The process will start and your PC will start sending firmware files to your smartphone. On the device, you are being told that lineage OS recovery is verifying the update package and you are just going to wait for the process to complete. Don’t touch the USB cable or mess with anything until the process is complete.

Once that first adb side load is finished you’re going to see your phone showing a menu there asking if you want to apply from adb again.

Step 10: Tap the back arrow on the top of your device to go back to the main screen.

Step 11: Tap on Advance on the main screen and then tap on reboot to recover. If you have Lineage OS recovery installed it is just going to boot you right back into that recovery. If you have something like TWRP installed then you are going to reboot from that custom recovery back into TWRP.

Step 12: If you do not want any Google apps installed then you can go ahead and tap the reboot system now option. It will boot you into LineageOS 19 and set up your device.

Step 13: But we are also going to install a Google apps package and to do that again after rebooting back into recovery mode we are going to go back into adb sideload mode.

Step 14: Again, tap on Apply update and then again tap on applying from ADB.

Step 15: In the command prompt, Windows Power Shell or Windows Terminal and type out that command adb side load and the name of the Gapps or Google apps package that you downloaded. Make sure that you downloaded the Android 12.1 Google apps package.

Step16: Hit enter on the keyboard. It will start sending the Google apps package to your device. As the Google apps file is not made by the lineage OS developers, you will get a signature verification failed message on your device. You have to tap on Yes on your device to continue.

Step 17: Once it says done on your device, you can then tap the back arrow to go back to the lineage OS or the lineage recovery main menu.

Step 18: Once you are at this main menu, just tap the reboot system now button. Your device will turn off and then go through the normal boot process.

That’s it. This is how you can update your device from LineageOS 18.1 version to the latest LineageOS 19 version based on Android 12.1.

Experiencing difficulties with your Device, check out our “How To” page on how to resolve some of these issues.