What happens if you lost your school Chromebook

Q: Can school Chromebooks be tracked?

Without additional software/hardware, you cant track a lost Chromebook. At best, you can find the city it is in but the Chromebook must be turned on and connected to wifi just to get that information. If a school Chromebook is missing, the best thing to do is talk to the IT department.

Most people don’t know that Google Workspace for Education has a built- in feature to help your school district or organization retrieve lost or stolen Chromebooks. That’s right, if you’re missing a device, or a whole bunch of devices, you can use the Google Workspace for Education Admin console to disable unreturned Chromebooks permanently until you get them back in your hands!

Table of Contents Show

What happens if you lose school Chromebook?
What do you do if you lose your Chromebook?
Can school Chromebooks be tracked?
How much is a school Chromebook if lost?

There are two different methods for Google Workspace for Education System Admins to retrieve Chromebooks after students and parents have been asked nicely. The one you choose will depend on how many Chromebooks you have and how comfortable you are with command line tools. (Don’t worry, ALL of the directions you need are in this post.)

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

First, let’s set up the message that will appear on the screen of a Chromebook you have been unable to retrieve:

Go to admin.google.com and log in as a system administrator
Click Devices
Click Chrome Management (on the left)
Click Device Settings
Select the OU where you want to send the message. NOTE: You can use the same message for the entire account, or if you have your Chromebooks separated by school, you can set up a different message per school OU.
Under “Disabled device return instructions,” write your message. We suggest something like “This device was disabled by X School District. Please return it to ADDRESS Office # xxx-xxx-xxxx”
Click Save in the top right corner.
Repeat these steps for any OU where you want a different message.

Now that you have your messages set up, let’s learn how to push them out!

Method 1: Best for Smaller Numbers of Chromebooks OR for Sys Admins without a Comfort Level with Command Line Tools

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 can 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 list to select all Chromebooks on that page.
Click the Disable Chromebook button on the top right of the page

Click ‘Disable’ on the confirmation pop up.
Click the right arrow at the bottom right of the page to continue to the next 50 Chromebooks. NOTE: If you have 1000 Chromebooks, that would mean repeating this process 20 times, which is why we recommend Method 2 if you have a large number of devices.
When you are ready to re-enable these Chromebooks, you will follow the same steps above, except on step 6, the disable button will be replaced with an enable button.
You will have to change the ‘Status’ filter at the top of the list to All to see disabled Chromebooks.

Method 2: Great for Larger Numbers of Chromebooks OR for Sys Admins with Command Line Tool Knowledge

Download and install GAM from Github: https://github.com/jay0lee/GAM/wiki This will take some effort, but there is information on their site about installing GAM. Install to an easy 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 can also leave ‘include all organizational units’ selected if you want to affect devices from all OUs
Click the Export button in the top right corner.

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

Copy or move the csv to the folder where you have GAM installed. NOTE: It can be helpful to change the csv name to something short like disable.csv
Open a command prompt by clicking on the Windows button (bottom right of your screen) and typing cmd, then press enter
Change the directory to where you have GAM installed C: cd\ GAM
Type in the following command:

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

Change disable.csv to what your csv is named if you did not rename it
To enable these Chromebooks later, use the same CSV and type the following command

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

What happens if you lose school Chromebook?

Stolen Devices(Chromebooks) School assigns temporary loaner or replacement device to the student. It is up to the school to provide the device.

What do you do if you lose your Chromebook?

Step 1: Secure your lost phone, tablet, or Chromebook.

Open a browser, like Chrome. . ... .

Open your Google Account..

In the "Security" section, find "Your devices." Select Manage devices..

Select the lost phone, tablet, or Chromebook. ... .

Next to "Account Access," select Sign out..

Can school Chromebooks be tracked?

Without additional software/hardware, you can't track a lost Chromebook. At best, you can find the city it is in but the Chromebook must be turned on and connected to wifi just to get that information. If a school Chromebook is missing, the best thing to do is talk to the IT department.