Use Chrome upgrades

Use upgrades to enroll bundled and standalone ChromeOS devices

For administrators who manage ChromeOS devices for a business or school.

For devices to use your purchased upgrades, you must first enroll the device into your organization. Enrollment establishes the link between your device and your organization, and enforces your configured policies.

If you purchased standalone ChromeOS devices, you will need to purchase standalone upgrades. You can only enroll as many standalone devices that you purchased upgrades for. If you try to enroll more devices than you have upgrades for, you’ll see an error message and devices won’t enroll. In that case, you’ll need to unenroll devices or get more upgrades. For details, see Repair, repurpose, or retire ChromeOS devices.

If you purchased ChromeOS devices bundled with Chrome Enterprise Upgrade or Chrome Education Upgrade, you do not need to purchase separate standalone upgrades for them. You can directly enroll bundled devices into in your organization. Each device has an integrated upgrade that covers the life of the device.

Note: Your account type determines what Chrome features are available to you. For example, if your organization has an education account and you enroll a ChromeOS device bundled with Chrome Enterprise Upgrade, you can't access Chrome features that are exclusive to enterprise accounts.

See how many upgrades you have

Sign in to your Google Admin console.
Sign in using your administrator account (does not end in @gmail.com).
From the Admin console Home page, go to Menu DevicesChromeDevices.
At the top, click Upgrades.
- Standalone—Education/Enterprise, Kiosk & Signage—ChromeOS upgrade services that are not bundled with ChromeOS devices. These upgrades require device enrollment to activate the services.
  - Assigned—Number of standalone upgrades that have been enrolled to a device and are currently active.
  - Unassigned—Number of standalone upgrades that are currently available for enrollment and use by additional devices.
  - No longer available—Number of standalone upgrades that were purchased but are no longer available for enrollment. These are perpetual upgrades that were enrolled to a device that has since been retired and the upgrade cannot be transferred to a different device.
  - Total purchased—Total number of standalone upgrades purchased.
- Bundled—Devices that are bundled with a ChromeOS upgrade (Education or Enterprise). The ChromeOS upgrade is available for the life of the device.
  - Enterprise—Total number of bundled Chrome Enterprise upgrades purchased.
  - Education—Total number of bundled Chrome Education upgrades purchased.
  - Total Purchased —Total number of bundled upgrades purchased.

Use upgrades

For information about how to enroll a device, see Enroll ChromeOS devices.

Before you begin

To enroll using Kiosk & Signage Upgrade, ChromeOS devices must be running version 104 or later.
If you have no upgrades available for the selected upgrade type, you will receive an error notifying you that you must purchase additional upgrades.

Enroll devices using the upgrade type that you want

When you enroll devices, you can choose which upgrade type you want to use—Chrome Enterprise Upgrade or Kiosk & Signage Upgrade. When you enroll devices, the corresponding available upgrade count goes down and the device is registered with the selected upgrade type.

Change the upgrade on an enrolled device

Changes to an upgrade type can take up to 24 hours to be reflected on the device. It does not factory reset and wipe device data. To do this, see Wipe ChromeOS device data.

If you enrolled a device using an incorrect upgrade type or you want to change your upgrade, use one of the following options:

Change the upgrade of the device.
1. Sign in to your Google Admin console.
  Sign in using your administrator account (does not end in @gmail.com).
2. From the Admin console Home page, go to Menu DevicesChromeDevices.
3. Select the device by clicking it in the list.
4. On the left, click Change Upgrade.
5. In the Change upgrade for device box, select Change upgrade.
6. Click Done.

Deprovision the device and enroll it again using the correct upgrade type.

Device behavior when changing from Chrome Enterprise Upgrade to Kiosk & Signage Upgrade

User sessions and managed guest sessions are not available when devices are enrolled in the Kiosk & Signage Upgrade. Before you change the upgrade to Kiosk & Signage, make sure your device is configured for kiosk sessions.

If you change the upgrade type while a user is logged in or managed guest sessions are active, those sessions continue until the next device reboot. After rebooting, session options are no longer available. User session data is still stored but is not accessible. To access user session data, you must change the upgrade type back to Chrome Enterprise Upgrade and sign into the device.

Device behavior changing from Kiosk & Signage Upgrade to Chrome Enterprise Upgrade

Devices remain configured for kiosk session when changing from the Kiosk & Signage Upgrade to the Chrome Enterprise Upgrade. Devices enrolled in the Chrome Enterprise Upgrade will have the additional functionalities of signed-in users or managed guest sessions. To use the device as a signed-in user or managed guest session, you must reboot and locally sign into the device.

Unenroll devices

If you have annual upgrades for Chrome Enterprise Upgrade or Kiosk & Signage Upgrade, you can unenroll devices at any time. You can unenroll a device and transfer the upgrade to another standalone device (of any model) in the same domain. However, you can't transfer an upgrade to another domain.

If you have perpetual upgrades for standalone devices, you can transfer the upgrade to another device of the same model (or equivalent manufacturer-provided replacement) only if you encounter a hardware issue and need to replace the device.

Note: To unenroll a device in your organization, you need to deprovision it. Then, you can wipe the device and use it as an unmanaged device or enroll it in another domain. For details, see Repair, repurpose, or retire Chrome devices.