There are a number of online firmware repositories from where you can download the Samsung Galaxy firmware for free. Tools like Frija and SamFirm are even better solutions for those who want to download BL, AP, CP, CSC, and HOME CSC or Samsung firmware binaries for their Galaxy device to flash using Odin. Below, we will discuss the best websites and tools to download the official Samsung firmware update files.
There was a time when Samsung firmware used to have just one file. But now, Samsung split the firmware into 5 binaries out of which we have flash 4 files:
- BL
- AP
- CP
- CSC or HOME CSC
Since there is no way to download the BL, AP, CP, CSC, or Home CSC files separately, you must download the full Samsung firmware to get all four binaries in a zip. You’ll get these files only after you extract the firmware.zip file. Once you have the files for Odin or firmware binaries, you can easily flash them using the official Odin tool.
What are BL, AP, CP, CSC & Home CSC?
An Android smartphone relies on components like the bootloader, data, vendor, key storage, EFS, user data, system, modem, kernel, and recovery. All Android firmware contains these elements as .img inside them. Samsung firmware files keep them packed with specific encryption that can be decrypted by official flash tools like Odin before installation. Binaries like BL, AP, CP, and CSC pack together all core elements and partitions. BL, AP, CP, and CSC and abbreviated forms. Below, I’ll try to explain what they are.
- BL: It’s the short form of Bootloader. The BL binary with .tar.md5 extension flashes the bootloader on your Samsung smartphone or Galaxy Tab.
- AP: If you look at the file size of the AP binary, you’ll notice that it’s the biggest of all 4 files you flash using Odin. On the older versions of Odin, this option was called PDA. The full file of AP is ‘Android Processor‘ and it is responsible for flashing the system partition on your Samsung device.
- CP: Previously known as PDA, CP stands for ‘Core Processor‘. This binary contains the modem.img and when you install this with Odin, it pushes the Modem on your device.
- CSC: The full form of CSC is ‘Consumer Software Customization‘ or ‘Country Specific (Product) Code‘. The CSC component of Samsung firmware is specific to network providers and geographical regions. In other words, it contains customizations related to a geographical location, APN settings, carrier branding, and other things. If you want a clean installation on your phone, you should flash CSC. Flashing the CSC (only) binary will wipe all the apps, data, settings, and files and your device will be reset to the factory status. The CSC binary contains the Samsung PIT file.
- HOME CSC: This binary is the same as CSC. This difference is it does not wipe your Samsung Galaxy device during the firmware update.
Why Download Samsung Firmware?
In normal situations, you might need to download Samsung firmware for your smartphone or tablet. Samsung keeps pushing software updates at times to keep your phone secure and add new features and improve its performance. My elder brother has been using Samsung phones for years and has never felt the need to flash the firmware on his phone manually. Even whenever he encounters any issue, he simply performs a factory reset to fix it.
However, there might be certain situations when downloading the BL, AP, CP, CSC, and Home CSC binaries or the full firmware might be the only solution.
- Downgrade software: If you think that a software update has snatched away some feature or app compatibility which was indispensable to you, you can downgrade to an older version of firmware manually.
- Fix Boot loop: Sometimes, your Samsung device might refuse to boot up properly after a software update. Most of us love trying new apps. Sometimes, a bad app may send your phone to a state of boot loop and, as a result, your device is stuck on the Samsung logo. Flashing firmware using Odin can help you with recovering your phone.
- Change CSC: If you’ve purchased your country from the same country you live in, you may never need to change the CSC on your Samsung device. However, if you purchased a pre-owned Samsung phone or bought it abroad, you might not find your native language on it. In that case, flashing the firmware with the CSC of your country/region will install your native language.
- Manual Software Update: If you use your Samsung device in a different country, you may not receive software updates via OTA. You can download the latest Samsung firmware and install it manually using the Odin flash tool to upgrade the software version.
Where can You Download Samsung Firmware?
There are so many websites and file hosting services from where you can download the firmware for your Samsung device. Below we’ll check some of the hot spots that make Samsung firmware download available.
1. Frija – Download BL, AP, CP, CSC, & HOME CSC
If you want to download Samsung firmware for free and without any speed cap, Frija is the best tool. It’s a very simple tool with a clean and user-friendly UI. Frija supports auto and manual modes. In Auto mode, you just need to provide the model number and CSC of your Samsung device.
The Auto mode checks for the latest firmware update for your Samsung phone or Galaxy Tab. On the other hand, with the Manual mode, you can download the Samsung firmware of your choice. You will have to provide some more details like the Model number and CSC of your phone as well as versions of PDA (AP), Phone (CP), and CSC. If the provided details are correct, Frija will download the BL, AP, CP, CSC, and HOME CSC binaries packed in a ZIP file. You can download the latest version of this tool from my full-fledged article describing the steps to use the Frija Samsung firmware download tool.
2. SamFirm Firmware Downloader
SamFirm is the short form of Samsung firmware. It used to be the only tool until Frija surfaced. Despite the fact that the developer of the tool has discontinued the development, SamFirm still works. This firmware downloader tool is not as user-friendly as Frija but it’s the only available alternative to the latter.
You can download the Samsung firmware for your Galaxy phone or Tab with SamFirm in just five steps as shown in the screenshot below.
- Download SamFirm and extract the downloaded zip. You can also download it from Google Drive.
- Open the extracted folder and double-click SamFirm.exe to launch it.
- In the box next to Model, fill in your Samsung device’s model number. You can find the model number by going to Settings > About phone.
- In the Region field, you need to fill in the CSC of your device. Read my tutorial to find out your Samsung phone’s CSC.
- Now click the Check Update button.
- SamFirm will fetch the details of the latest firmware available for your device and show its file name, AP, CSC, and CP versions of the software update, and its size.
- Finally, click the Download button. You’ll be asked to save the firmware zip file. When the firmware file is downloaded, unzip it to get the BL, AP, CP, CSC, and HOME CSC files for your Samsung device model.
3. Samloader (Mac, Windows, & Linux)
Samloader is a great Frija and Samfirm alternative as it’s a versatile tool that will help you download Samsung firmware on macOS, Linux, Windows, and even on an Android device using a terminal emulator app like Termux. Samloader is a Python-based script that can check for the latest firmware for your Galaxy device via the Terminal (macOS) or the Command Prompt (Windows) and download it. Head over to my detailed Samloader tutorial to learn how you can use this tool on Mac, Windows, and Linux.
4. Sammobile
Sammobile has been one of the oldest and most trusted sources from where you can download the latest Samsung firmware for all Samsung Galaxy devices. The website provides free firmware download to its member, but the speed is very slow. If you want to enjoy a fast or high-speed Samsung firmware download, you’ll have to get a monthly plan ranging from €6.50-€250. I don’t think it’s a wise decision to use Sammobile when we already have great options like Frija and SamFirm.
5. Updato
Updato is a Sammobile alternative that allows Samsung firmware download from their repository. The website has a good UI but its pages are super packed with ad banners. It doesn’t offer fast firmware downloads for free. The slow plan is so slow that you might need to make several attempts before you can actually download the firmware file.
6. Samsung-Firmware
Samsung Firmware (.org) is just another website like the ones mentioned above. They offer two plans slow speed and unmetered speed. In the slow-speed plan, you can download the firmware for free. However, considering the size of Samsung firmware files, it might take forever to download the full firmware. Just imagine a 5GB firmware download with a speed limit of 15KB per second! If you think you are a person of immense patience, you must try it to pass a litmus test.
7. SamFrew
SamFrew is another option for those who don’t want to use a Samsung firmware download tool. It’s cheaper than Sammobile and Updato. Just like others, it also offers slow Samsung firmware download for free. To get the firmware from 100 Mbps/100o Mbps mirrors, you are supposed to pay a one-time fee of $8.99/$22.99. My experience with SamFrew was better than all other websites listed above.
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Install BL, AP, CP, and CSC Files with Odin
When you are done downloading the firmware for your Samsung Galaxy device, you can install it easily and safely by following the quick steps described below:
- If you are going to use Samsung Odin for the first time, here are a few things you must be familiar with. Odin is a portable tool, which means you needn’t install it on your PC. When you have downloaded Odin.zip file, just extract it using a Zip extractor tool like 7Zip, WinZip, etc. Navigate to the Odin folder and perform right-click on Odin3.exe with your mouse and select ‘Run as administrator’.
- Make sure you have already downloaded the correct firmware zip and extracted it on your Windows desktop
- Download and install the Samsung USB driver on your computer.
- Enable USB Debugging on your device.
- Now turn off your Samsung device and boot it into the Download or Odin Mode. To do so, you’ll have to press and hold a specific hardware key combination at the same time for 2-3 seconds and then press the Volume Up key when you see the Warning screen.
- Devices with Home button:Â Volume Down + Home + Power buttons.
- Devices with Bixby button:Â Volume Down + Bixby + Power buttons.
- Galaxy devices with no Bixby button: Volume Up + Volume Down + Power keys.
- All devices: You can also use the ‘adb reboot bootloader‘ command to enter the download mode.
Download or Odin Mode
- Connect your device to the computer. Make sure to use the original Samsung USB cable that came with your phone or Tab to avoid any issues. When Odin detects your device, the ID COM port will be highlighted with light blue color.
- Open the firmware folder that contains the 5 binaries with .tar.md5 extension. In case you got an old Samsung Galaxy phone or Tab, and the firmware you downloaded has just a single .tar.md5 file, you are supposed to add the firmware to the AP slot in Odin. The rest of the steps are the same as described below.
- Click the BL button in Odin, navigate to the firmware folder, and add the file that has “BL_” in its name.
- Then click the AP button and select the firmware binary with “AP_” in its name The AP file will take a while to load in Odin because of its heavy size. Don’t panic if the Odin window freezes for some time after selecting the AP file.
- Similarly, add the CP, and CSCÂ (plain CSC if you want a clean installation and HOME_CSC if you don’t want to wipe your device data) files to the corresponding fields in Odin.
- Finally, click the Start button to initiate the installation.
Install BL, AP, CP, CSC in Odin
- Due to their big size, firmware files might take 3-5 minutes to install. So, you need to be patient and calm.
- Lastly, you’ll get PASS!! message in Odin. It indicates that Odin has flashed the firmware file successfully.
- When the firmware is installed, your Samsung device will reboot automatically.
You have successfully installed Samsung firmware binaries (BL, AP, CP, and CSC) on your Samsung Galaxy Device.
Of all 4 Samsung firmware download tools and sources listed above, I highly recommend Frija because it’s the best. Why should we pay for downloading something from a 3rd-party website when we can get it directly from Samsung FUS (Firmware Update Server)?
Read Next: List of the Working Samsung Secret Codes
Como lo puedo descargar los dive
What do you mean? The firmware download instructions have been already provided.
Is there any oth way possible of doin dis. I have two phones i need severely to bypass da google verification. One us a Galaxy S7 and da otha a Samsung Android. My phone i am usin now is also a Samsung Android wit da screen literally fallin to pieces. I need dis dearly. Please help meh.
Here is the guide to remove Google verification on Samsung devices: https://technastic.com/remove-frp-samsung-combination-file/
As for the other device, you can flash the firmware with Odin but you should also get the broken screen replaced.
so its july of 2022 and the method that you linked to no longer works…do you have any updated methods to defeat FRP?
what you need is a damn dictionary. maybe some vocabulistical training too…couldn’t hurt anyway.
hey bro u think u can provide the links for all the files that are needed fr the odin procces. My code is WG965 i have a samsung s9 plus with version 10
Hi Gabe, just download Frija and download the files yourself. It’s very easy. Read my Frija tutorial linked in the guide.
i downloaded the files for my firmware but the CP didnt show up. any idea as to why?
Hi Valerie, can you mention the name of the firmware binaries you found in the firmware folder after extracting?
Hi from Italy I’m going crazy here my question, I download sm-g361f with frijia now I have the SM-G361F_1_20190401173953_zovtvpur6s.zip file, I extract it but instead of have 5 separate file (bl, ap, cp etc..) I have several files like boot sboot recovery system etc…
I extract them so I can add to TAR file with an archive utility but I don’t know the correspondences:
example: BL is boot.img or sboot.img or both? ; AP is recovery.img? I read somewhere that AP is boot + sboot + recovery , is it right?
help me associate the file to the corresponded category, thank you! 🙂
files list: boot.img cache.img hidden.img loke_primary.bin loke_recovery.bin radio.img recovery.img recovery_sboot.bin sboot.bin system.img
Hi Marco, sorry for the late reply. Your phone supports single file firmware. That means you need to extract ‘SM-G361F_1_20190401173953_zovtvpur6s.zip’ only and you will find the single firmware file with .tar.md5 extension. You won’t get BL, AP,CP and CSC files. Just flash the firmware file you get after extracting SM-G361F_1_20190401173953_zovtvpur6s.zip using Odin.
https://technastic.com/odin-download-samsung-latest-all-versions/
Hey Rakesh, thanks for your guide. I’m in a similar situation to Marco – the stock rom comes in a single file: G530MUBS1BRK4_G530MTFG1BRK4_G530MUBU1BTJ2_HOME.tar.md5
I did not find a guide telling how to flash that single file with odin (in which slot) should I upload that file?
So far, I’ve been relying on Heimdall to do the job (since I am in linux) but I’m willing to try my hand at a windows vm and installing Odin
If in any case, you’re familiar with heimdall, the reason I’m not confident in using it, is because inside the tar.md5 I have the following files:
aboot.mbn boot.img cache.img.ext4 hidden.img.ext4 hyp.mbn modem.bin NON-HLOS.bin recovery.img rpm.mbn sbl1.mbn sec.dat system.img.ext4 tz.mbn
But the problem is that I’m not certain what are each of those files and not all of them have an obvious mapping to partition names in the original PIT file, sooo… I have no idea which ones should be flashed or to which partition to flash them onto.
Hi Jorge, you can follow this tutorial to flash single file Samsung firmware.
https://technastic.com/how-to-flash-stock-firmware-on-samsung-galaxy-devices/
Let me know if you need any further help.
Hi Rakesh… thanks for the quick reply… the guide is quite clear, alas I’ve been having trouble with USB passthrough from linux physical box to Windows virtualBox… I’ll keep looking into it until I can make it work because you never know when it’s going to be last resource, but in the meantime… I’ve seen you mention heimdall (which is what I was trying to use). Do you happen to know how to map the files inside the tar.gz to the PIT partitions?
So far, I am quite confident about:
rpm.mbn -> BOTA0
sbl1.mbn -> BOTA1
aboot.mbn -> BOTA2
boot.img -> boot
cache.img.ext4 -> cache
hidden.img.ext4 -> hidden
hyp.mbn -> ?
modem.bin -> ?
NON-HLOS.bin -> ?
recovery.img -> recovery
sec.dat -> ?
system.img.ext4 -> system
tz.bin -> tee1 ?
As you can see I have the two modem files with no mapping, the sec.dat and hyp.mbn also with no mapping and I am guessing tz.bin goes in tee1 since the filename for tee1 is trustzone.bin. Also I am guessing BOTA0|1|2 since rpm.bin usually is the first stage bootloader, spl1 usually the 2nd one and aboot the 3rd one, but also… no guarantees.
The partitions that give me a hard time either don’t have a flash filename assigned in the PIT, or don’t match much to the filenames I have in the stock ROM.
Also I donwloaded a “supposedly” stock PIT and it matches the pit I downloaded from my phone (except for a couple size/offsets and block counts)… flash image files missing.
Have you got any idea how to find out which files go where?
These are the Partition names on my PIT:
BOOTLOADER PGPT PIT MD5HDR BOTA0 nvram lk BOTA1 secro seccfg efuse tee1 BOTA2 EFS nvdata PARAM recovery boot md1img md1dsp keystore omekeystore proinfo para PERSISTENT STEADY protect1 protect2 RESERVE2 system cache hidden userdata SGPT
Thank you again
Hello again Rakesh. I managed to get over the vm-issues to make odin work inside a windows vm with the phone attached to a linux box. That part worked like a charm.
Problem is, the one-file version of the firmware (latest version for the phone found on sammobile) apparently is not compatible with the PIT file I have on my phone, ODIN fails because it does not know where to flash aboot.mbn (to start with). So my confidence in the previous post about aboot.mbn going in the BOTA2 partition and so on was grossly exaggerated.
Question now would be, have you got any idea where can I download a PIT file compatible with the one-file version of the firmware? I know in the 5-file version the pit file is included in the CSC file, but that’s not the case in the one-file version (as can be seen in the list of files I included in the previous post).
Moreover is there any way I can install a one-file version firmware onto a phone which currently has a PIT supporting a 5-file version firmware or just by trying I am headed to Brickton?
Any insight would be greatly appreciated
Thanks in advance
Which Samsung phone do you have, Jorge?
Hello Rakesh
Apparently I cannot reply to you in the same thread
Let’s try here, my phone is a samsung j2 prime
Thanks again
Okay, but you didn’t mention the model number.
You are right Rakesh, my bad… that seems to be the issue – The model number is SM-G532M. Apparently I must have clicked something wrong on SamMobile because the ROM was for G530M (most G532M ROMs were archived). I did get my hands on my domestic carriers for the right model, and now it all makes sense, I was able to flash 5 different carriers stock ROMS both in ODIN inside a vm, and in Heimdall in Linux. Most importantly now the partition images in the pit file match the files inside the AP, CP, BL and CSC packages.
The only drawback I found is that, when using Heimdall if I use the PIT in the CSC file and does not match the PIT downloaded from my phone, flashing fails because of the mismatch and suggests I should re-partition the phone, but when I try to re-partition with the new PIT I get an error in the phone screen.
If you have any idea how to go about that, great, if not… you’ve already helped me so much.
Thank you very much again
After renaming the AP to .zip, I cannot extract the contents as they require a password. Is there a default password being used for these?
Nazeer ahmad j6 sumsung mobile
I have a galaxy note 10 5g n971n.
It is flashed with Korean firmware.
Can i flash the indian firmware n970f
On it ?
Both are exynos processor’s
The only difference is the ram
N971n 12gb
N970f 8gb
Maybe i can switch the AP file for that
I want to do this because of the poor call quality i have with indian sim.
Hi Bhargav,
You should not flash that firmware as the model number is different.
P.S. This comment was edited.
Hi
I have an old Samsung Galaxy Grand Prime Plus (SM-G532F)
Build number MMB29T.G532FXWU1ASB1
I would like to enable Wi-Fi Calling which doesn’t currently appear in the Settings.
In order to do that I need access to the CSC directory and modify the “others.xml” file.
I would like to use Odin but don’t want / need to flash the full firmware (BL, AP, CP, CSC) because I don’t want to change anything else.
I would like to know if installing only the CSC file will root the phone and allow me to enable the hidden feature (Wi-Fi Calling) while keeping everything else unchanged. (Resetting to factory settings is OK)
I really appreciate your help
Thank you
Hi Alex, you can’t root your Samsung phone using the CSC file alone. You can do that by modifying the AP (if you have that level of coding expertise, of course).
Hello,
Im kinda stuck on flashing my phone (SM-G998B). All seems fine at 1st but when it comes to RADIO part nothing happens next… I waited like 1 hr+
Btw im using custom image (magisk AP).
Thanks for your help
Hi,
Where did you download that magisk AP from? Also, with custom firmware binaries, most devs recommend a certain version of Odin. Can you check on that or give me link to the forum page from where you got that file?
hello…does anyone have an UPDATED link (its 07/22) to how to defeat FRP using just Odin? bcuz I’ve tried the method where you have to use the Galaxy store to download Alliance X and the S9 launcher and all of that and its just too much to deal with and im hoping to find an Odin-based solution.
advTHANKSance