How To Find A Lost Chromebook

Headshot Mike Wallace

Mike Wallace

Learning and Innovation Manager

The goal of this procedure is for anyone who powers up a missing Chromebook to run across a message of your choice and know that they are treatment a school-owned device that needs to be returned

Nearly people don't know that Google Workspace for Education has a built- in characteristic to help your school district or organisation retrieve lost or stolen Chromebooks. That's right, if yous're missing a device, or a whole bunch of devices, y'all can utilize the Google Workspace for Education Admin panel to disable unreturned Chromebooks permanently until you get them back in your easily!

In that location are two dissimilar methods for Google Workspace for Instruction Arrangement Admins to think Chromebooks after students and parents take been asked nicely. The one y'all cull volition depend on how many Chromebooks yous have and how comfortable you are with command line tools. (Don't worry, ALL of the directions you demand are in this post.)

The goal of this process is for anyone who powers upwardly a missing Chromebook to see a message of your selection and know that they are handling a school-owned device that needs to be returned.

First, let'due south set up the bulletin that volition appear on the screen of a Chromebook yous take been unable to retrieve:

Go to admin.google.com and log in as a system ambassador
Click Devices
Click Chrome Management (on the left)
Click Device Settings
Select the OU where you want to ship the message. Notation: You can employ the aforementioned message for the entire account, or if you accept your Chromebooks separated by school, you tin can set up a different message per school OU.
Nether "Disabled device render instructions," write your message. We advise something like "This device was disabled by X Schoolhouse District. Delight render it to ADDRESS Office # xxx-xxx-xxxx"
Click Save in the meridian correct corner.
Repeat these steps for any OU where y'all desire a different bulletin.

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Now that you have your letters gear up, allow's learn how to button them out!

Method i: All-time for Smaller Numbers of Chromebooks OR for Sys Admins without a Comfort Level with Command Line Tools

Become to admin.google.com and log in as an administrator
Click Devices
Click Chrome Devices
Select the OU that contains the Chromebooks yous want to disable.
You tin also leave 'include all organizational units' selected if you want to affect devices from all OUs.
Select the devices you want to disable.
You can select the box next to 'Serial Number' at the top of the listing to select all Chromebooks on that page.
Click the Disable Chromebook button on the top correct of the page

Click 'Disable' on the confirmation popular upwards.
Click the right arrow at the lesser right of the folio to continue to the adjacent 50 Chromebooks. NOTE: If yous take 1000 Chromebooks, that would mean repeating this process 20 times, which is why nosotros recommend Method two if you accept a large number of devices.
When you lot are ready to re-enable these Chromebooks, y'all will follow the aforementioned steps higher up, except on stride half-dozen, the disable push will be replaced with an enable button.
Y'all will have to alter the 'Status' filter at the meridian of the list to All to run into disabled Chromebooks.

Method two: Bully for Larger Numbers of Chromebooks OR for Sys Admins with Control Line Tool Knowledge

Download and install GAM from Github: https://github.com/jay0lee/GAM/wiki This will take some endeavour, simply there is information on their site about installing GAM. Install to an like shooting fish in a barrel to find folder, like c:\GAM
In Chrome, go to admin.google.com and log in as an administrator
Click "Devices"
Click "Chrome Devices"
Select the OU that contains the Chromebooks you want to disable.
You lot can too go out 'include all organizational units' selected if you want to affect devices from all OUs
Click the Consign button in the top right corner.

Wait for the list to finish exporting.
Click on the hourglass to the left of your profile movie

Download the csv

Copy or move the csv to the binder where you have GAM installed. NOTE: It can be helpful to change the csv name to something short like disable.csv
Open up a control prompt past clicking on the Windows button (bottom right of your screen) and typing cmd, then printing enter
Modify the directory to where you have GAM installed C: cd\ GAM
Blazon in the post-obit command:

gam csv disable.csv gam update cros ~deviceId action disable

Change disable.csv to what your csv is named if y'all did non rename it
To enable these Chromebooks subsequently, utilise the same CSV and type the following command

Gam csv disable.csv gam update cros ~devicIed activity re-enable The next time a disabled device connects to the internet, it volition come upwardly with a message like this and not allow anyone log in:

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Source: https://kincaidit.com/blog/2021/05/26/googles-clever-feature-to-retrieve-lost-chromebooks/