How to Hide Root from Apps

How to Hide Root from Apps

Hi! it's been a long time since the last time I posted something here. But don't worry I got some neat tool for Android which can do really amazing work. Yes, hide root from apps. If you have a rooted Android phone, and your freedom is compromised with some jerky apps requiring your phone to be unrooted, well, you're lucky to be here. This tool will cloak your rooted device from some strict apps that require your device to be non-rooted (e.g banking apps) and it's FREE.

The Magic Mask is Called 'Magisk'

What it really can do (copy-pasted straight from the forum):

Magic Mount: 

Allow you to do any system (vendor) modification without actually tampering the partitions.

MagiskSU: Open Source Root Solution

Root your device with MagiskSU, based on phh's Superuser, which is based on CM Superuser.

Magisk Manager: 

MagiskSU Root Management, Install / Upgrade Magisk in-app.

Manage, Upgrade, Download, Install Magisk Modules within a few taps.

Magisk Hide: 

Hide Magisk from detection, including SafetyNet, which is used in Android Pay, Pokemon GO, Mario Run etc.

Resetprop: 

Allow you to do any modifications to system props (build.prop), including read-only props.It is also used for tricking the bootloader state, and (for Samsung) the KNOX state.

Multiple Entry Points: 

Provide several entry points to developers, reliably pausing the boot process before everything is done.Include post-fs (cache) mode, which happens even earlier than data is mounted (used to replace Boot Animation etc.)

Standard Stuffs: 

Remove dm-verity, forceencrypt, unlock partitions blocks to support remount to rw.

My favorite features is Magisk Hide, which can hide my root status of my phone from banking apps.

You can head over to their XDA forum thread here for installation instruction.

It Doesn't Work, Help!

Hiding your root is not working? According to this stackoverflow post, there are many ways of how the developer checks root status. Here they are :

1. Test-keys
   Check your Build number under Settings > About phone. If it has 'test-keys' string in it then you have to modify your build.prop file under /system block. Search for ro.build.tags. If it has "test-keys" value, you have to change it to "release-keys". Test-keys means your device is a test device, or an emulator, or it has custom unofficial ROM installed. This one got me bad.
2. SU binary
   Developers will search su binary in these locations: 
   "/sbin/su"
   "/system/bin/su"
   "/system/xbin/su"
   "/data/local/xbin/su"
   "/data/local/bin/su"
   "/system/sd/xbin/su"
   "/system/bin/failsafe/su"
   "/data/local/su"
   "/su/bin/su"
   "/system/app/Superuser.apk"
3. which su command
   Try execute 'which su' in shell/terminal on your phone to search for remaining accessible binary.

For point 2 & 3, if you have installed Magisk, those shouldn't be problems since Magisk will cleanup and replace existing root binary with their own. Please double check the Magisk Hide feature is active for your selected app(s).