In this tutorial, we will show you how to download Samsung OTA Updates using the Samloader tool. OEMs usually upload their firmware packages online onto their respective websites. This then allows the users to download and manually flash the required firmware file via stock recovery, ADB sideloads, or other methods. However, with Samsung, things are different. There isn’t any official place as such from where you could get a hold of stock firmware.
As a result, users look for alternatives in the form of third-party software. Among them, SamFirm and Frija are two of the most popular players in this domain. You could easily download the firmware files using the above tools and then flash it via Odin. And now, we have a new player in this segment. Known as Samloader, it has streamlined the entire downloading process. In this guide, we will list out the steps to download Samsung OTA Updates using this Samloader tool.
What is the Samloader Tool
XDA junior member n000 reverse-engineered the Samsung Smart Switch and created a cross-platform tool in Python. The biggest perk of this tool is that it is open-source, hence you could access its source code from the GitHub repository. Along the same lines, it doesn’t use the Windows DLL. This means that the tool is then compatible with Mac and Linux platforms as well (apart from Windows).
Furthermore, this tool is extremely lightweight (around 100 KB) and could be used to decrypt the OTA package as well. Then you could also add the ability to create flashable packages to this tool’s functionality list. With this, you might have got a pretty decent idea regarding this tool. So let’s now check out the steps to use the Samloader tool and hence download Samsung OTA Updates via it.
How to Download Samsung OTA Updates via Samloader
We have broken down the below instruction steps into separate sections for the ease of understanding. Follow the exact same sequence.
STEP 1: Install Python 3 and PIP
- First and foremost, download the latest build of Python. Then launch its setup file and proceed ahead with the on-screen instructions to install the software.
- Once that is done, you will also have to install PIP. Fortunately, newer Python builds already have this installed. To verify it, launch the Command Prompt as an admin and then execute the following command:pip help
- Upon entering the above code, you should get a long list of commands. This signifies that PIP has been successfully installed. You may now proceed to the next step.
STEP 2: Download Samloader
It’s now time to download the Codebase of Samloader. For that, you could either use this direct link or clone the repository using git. The latter could be done using the following command:
git clone https://github.com/nlscc/samloader
STEP 3: Install using PIP
Now that you have downloaded Samloader and installed Python and PIP, its time to install the Samloader. That will be carried out using the PIP command. First off, we will be changing the directory to the location of the tool and then installing it via PIP. Here is the required command for the same:
cd samloader pip3 install
Or you could also use the following syntax:
pip3 install <path-to-samloader>
STEP 4: Checking the latest Firmware for your device
Since we are done with the installation, its time to begin the process to download Samsung OTA Updates using the Samloader tool. For that, the first step requires checking the latest firmware file for your Samsung device. Then syntax for that will be:
samloader checkupdate [model] [region]
For example, if your device is a T-Mobile Samsung Galaxy S20 Ultra, then the above command will translate to:
samloader checkupdate SM-G988U TMB
Along the same lines, you could modify the command corresponding to your device.
STEP 5: Downloading the Firmware File
You could now download the firmware file for your Galaxy devices along with specifying the download directory, using the below command:
samloader download [version] [model] [region] [out]
STEP 6: Decrypting the Firmware
Finally, if you wish to decrypt the firmware artifacts, then there are two different commands for that. It depends on the type of encrypted firmware you are using, whether enc2 or enc4. Commands for both of them are given below:
- For enc2 encrypted firmware:
samloader decrypt2 [version] [model] [region] [infile] [outfile]
- For enc4 encrypted firmware:
samloader decrypt4 [version] [model] [region] [infile] [outfile]
The appropriate firmware file corresponding to your Galaxy device will now be downloaded. So with that, we conclude the guide on how to download Samsung OTA Updates using the Samloader tool. There are a few important points that need your attention. Some carriers like AT&T and Verizon use Samsung’s OTA server to provide official updates, hence the tool wouldn’t be able to work with these carriers.
