Earlier today, Cyanogen Inc. and OnePlus started rolling out the Cyanogen OS 12/Android 5.0 update for the OnePlus One. Apart from finally bringing Lollipop to the handset, the update also adds some new customization features and new system apps.

The OTA update is being rolled out in stages, so it will not show up immediately on your OnePlus One. You can, however, always sideload the update manually on your device. This process does not void the warranty, requires you to unlock the bootloader or wipe your installed apps from the device, so there are no major cons of using this method.

The steps below will work on all the variants of the OnePlus One running the latest version of CM11S, and irrespective of the region they were sold in. Even though the steps below will not touch your personal data on the phone, it is recommended to make a backup just in case things go wrong.

Step 1: Download the full Cyanogen OS 12 ROM from here. Make sure to rename the file to “update.zip” to avoid any confusion later on and transfer it the internal storage of your One.

Step 2:  On your OnePlus One, enable ‘Developer Options’ by going to Settings -> About Phone and tapping on ‘Build Number’ seven times. Now, head back to Settings -> Developer Options and enable the ‘Advanced Reboot’ menu.

Step 3: Long press the Power button to bring the Power menu and then select the Reboot option. From the pop up that appears on the screen, select the ‘Recovery’ option.

Step 4: Once your device boots into recovery, select the ‘apply update’ option followed by ‘apply from internal storage.’ Then navigate to the “update.zip” file that was transferred to the device in the first step and confirm your selection by pressing the Power button.

Once the ZIP file has been successfully installed, reboot your device from the Recovery menu to enjoy Cyanogen OS 12/Lollipop on your One.

The above guide will also work for OnePlus One users who have are running the latest version of CM11S without any modifications, but have a custom recovery installed. In case your system partition is modified in anyway, it is more than likely that you will get a Status 7 Error during the installation process.

If the above ZIP does not work, you will have to manually flash the system partition from the OnePlus One factory image and then repeat the steps listed above to enjoy Cyanogen OS 12 on your handset.

Thanks to bestlands for the screenshots!