Despite its Google branding, the Pixel and Pixel XL units sold through certain carriers in the world come with a locked down bootloader. This includes carrier models sold by the likes of Verizon in the United States and EE in the United Kingdom. 

Coming to their rescue, the team behind HTC’s popular S-Off and boot unlocking tool Sunshine has released a new tool called dePixel8. Developed by ”beaups”, the dePixel8 tool will allow you to unlock the bootloader of your Pixel or Pixel XL that comes with a locked down bootloader.

Usually, the team charges a small fee for their bootloader unlocking tool since finding such exploits takes time and resources, but as a “thank you” to their supporters and customers, the Sunshine team has chosen to release dePixel8 for free.

Using the tool itself is simple and only requires you to have ADB/Fastboot and the necessary drivers installed on your PC. Once you run the ‘dePixel8’ script, your Pixel or Pixel XL will automatically reboot into bootloader mode. From there, you need to issue the “fastboot oem unlocking” command to proceed to unlock the bootloader like normal. And in case you get an error saying that the bootloader cannot be unlocked, repeat the steps again.

It is likely that the exploit used in the dePixel8 tool will stop working once Google rolls out the November security patch so if you own a Verizon or EE branded Pixel with a locked down bootloader, you should use the tool right away.

You can find all the instructions, download link and the steps on how to use depixel8 over here.