Last week, HTC started rolling out the Android 5.0.1 Lollipop update for the Google Play edition of the HTC One (M7/M8). 

The company has also already confirmed that it will be updating the Sense variant of the One to Android 5.0 by the end of January next year.

The good news is that if you own the Sense variant of the HTC One, you can get a taste of Android 5.0 on your device right away. You will have to play around with fastboot, custom recoveries and void the warranty of your device during the process though.

You will also need to make a backup of all your important data on the phone since unlocking the bootloader will completely format the internal storage of the HTC One, which means all your personal data including applications, text messages and personalized settings will be wiped out.

All set? Follow the instructions below.

Step 1: Head over to HTC’s Developer website, register for an account if you haven’t already. Then go to the Unlock Bootloader section under Developer Center and follow the instructions to unlock the bootloader. You can skip the setup process when your device reboots into Android since you will anyway be flashing the Lollipop ROM in a few minutes.

Step 2: After you’ve successfully unlocked the bootloader, you will have to flash a custom recovery on your One M8. Download all the files linked below, and transfer them inside a folder called “one” on your desktop. Make sure all the files are present inside the folder itself, and are not within another folder inside the “one” folder.

• Download the latest version of TWRP recovery for HTC One M8 from here
• ADB/Fastboot for Windows | Mac

Rename the TWRP recovery image file to something simpler like “twrp.img”.

Also, download the Google Play edition based Android 5.0 Lollipop ROM from this link (look for the latest flashable ROM currently 5.0.1) and transfer it to the internal storage of your HTC One.

Step 3: Open a command prompt or Terminal window on your PC, and navigate to the “one” folder on your desktop using the ‘cd’ command.

cd USERNAME/desktop/one

Step 4: Power down your device, then press and hold the Volume Down button along with the Power key to boot the device into Bootloader mode. If you have difficulty, power up normally, go to Settings->Battery and deselect Fast boot. Power down and try again.

Step 5: Use the Volume buttons to select up or down. Highlight Fastboot and press the Power button.

Step 6: Make sure that the device is discovered by your PC by using the below command:

fastboot devices

If you are using a Mac, then you need to prefix a “./” before every Fastboot command. So, the above command will look something like this on a Mac -:

./fastboot devices

The above command should confirm if your device is indeed being detected by your PC or not. If it is, then proceed to the steps below. If not, repeat the above steps again. Make sure to check that you have properly installed the drivers, and are inside the correct folder.

Step 7: Now, flash the TWRP recovery on your HTC One using the below command:

fastboot flash recovery twrp.img

If you are using a Mac, don’t forget to prefix a “./” before the fastboot command.

Step 8: Reboot your device by issuing the following fastboot command:

fastboot reboot

Step 9: Once your device has booted into Android, switch it off again, and then press the Volume Down + Power button to boot into fastboot mode. Now, using the Volume keys, highlight the ‘Recovery’ option, and then select it by pressing the Power key.

Step 10: Your phone will then automatically reboot into TWRP recovery. Before installing the Lollipop ROM, you will have to wipe the system and data partitions on the device. To do so, select the ‘Wipe’ option followed by ‘Advanced Wipe’ option.

Then, select the “System” and “Data” partitions, and finally swipe the slider at the bottom to format them. You will get a confirmation message informing you that the Wipe was complete.

Step 11: Head back to the main menu and select the ‘Install’ option. Then navigate and select the Lollipop ROM that you had transferred to your device in Step 2.

Step 12: Swipe on the Swipe to Confirm flash slider to proceed.

Step 13:  Once the ROM is flashed, select the ‘Reboot system’ option. The first boot is going to take a considerable amount of time (up to 5 minutes), so be patient.

If you followed everything accordingly, you should now be running Lollipop on your HTC One M8.

Credits to graffixnyc for the ROM.