How can i downgrade to KitKat? Lollipop sucks!

[AC Question]

I agree with all of you 100%. Lollipop is gross to be honest. If I wanted everything white, flat and ugly (and uncustomisable) I'd buy an iPhone. Phone now freeze up, notification bar is ugly, cant view the contents without clicking on it, when new message received my LED light wont light up, screen wont wake up as well. How can i downgrade without doing factory reset? Android should fix the notifications settings, keep them as they were. The update would've been a lot better without changing notifications settings and layout. We have to do so many steps know in order to receive a notification, keep it like the KitKat version (i mean settings wise).

 

[Rukbat]

How can i downgrade without doing factory reset?

A factory reset will give you a clean phone - still on 5.

You can't "go back", you can flash a KitKat ROM for that phone, assuming it's not a Samsung on AT&T or Verizon. (They have a major version counter that can't be reset, and you can't go back past the current major version.) It will effectively do a factory reset, since the ROM doesn't have any of your apps or data. If you can install TWRP on that phone without wiping the data (some do, some don't), install it and back up your data partition (and save the backup file on your PC), otherwise back up all your apps and all your data (Helium can back up the data from the apps - it will be in a folder named carbon, so copy that to your PC). Then back all your files (pictures, videos, music, etc.) to your PC. Remove the SD card if you have one, then flash the KitKat ROM.

If you installed TWRP, just restore the data partition and you're back before the update. If not, start restoring everything.

If you have any apps moved to the SD card, move them back to the PC before doing anything else, or they won't be installed on KitKat, you'll have to install them again.