Chromebook Tracking is an extremely useful tool. Here is how you can use it to track your chromebook in case of theft or misplacement.
Every single Chromebook (as well as an phone or tablet powered by Google’s Android operating system) has the ability to be tracked.
This powerful ability allows you to find your chromebook if someone steals it or if you just forgot where you put it. But it is important to remember a few things about Chromebook Tracking:
- The Chromebook needs to be turned on in order for Chromebook Tracking to work. If someone turns it off then it can’t be tracked anymore.
- The tracking mechanism will be limited to just the general area it is in. Usually just the city it is in. And the Chromebook will need to be connected to WiFi.
- If someone turns off WiFi you will not be able to track your Chromebook.
- If someone wipes your Chromebook then you will not be able to track it.
Number 4 might be particularly aggravating if your chromebook has been stolen. You might be wondering why Google didn’t include a way to track Chromebook even when wiped.
Well what if you had purchased a used chromebook? Would you want the previous owner of the chromebook to be able to track where the machine is? Probably not.
Now here’s the bad news:
Unlike smartphones Google Chromebooks don’t have a GPS chip. Most of them also don’t have a 4G LTE data connection. Because of this the amount of data that you’re going to get from Chromebook tracking is smaller than what you would get tracking a smartphone.
But here is what you can use Chromebook tracking for:
- Find out what city the chromebook is in.
- Find out what cities it has been in recently.
- Find out when it has been in those cities by date and time.
The link for this chromebook tracking information is here: https://security.google.com/settings/security/activity
You will need to login to the same Google account you use to login to your chromebook.
Thanks for sharing this, I had no idea.
Pls what’s the cost for bulk purchase 200 and above trackers for Chrome Book?
Thanks in anticipation.
Brown
thanks for letting me know Merry Christmas to you
I am a chromebook admin for a school, we have 5 devices that have been stolen or misplaced. However, none of the s/n numbers are still in our system. They all say they are not enrolled in our school. Is there a way to track them by serial number some other way?
I left my laptop in class and is nowhere to be found since the 13 of April. I’m wondering if there is a way that I can locate my chrome book.
I was wondering if there is anything that can be done to track down my stolen Chromebook Plus. It was stolen 83 days ago out of a walmart shopping buggy. I filed a report with my local police station the next day, and they never got back to me.
Last night, while thinking about it I went to go check my recently used device section on my Google account page. To discover that my Chromebook Plus had been turned on, and it connected to the internet July 18th. However, it wasn’t me because I lost it July 14th. Google says it still has access to my account. I was wondering if there was anyway I could use the access it has to track it down or at least help the police investigation in anyway? If it was wiped, and my account erased from the device could it still have access to my Google account like it says it does in my recently used device section on my google account page?
My Chromebook has been missing for a few months, almost a year and when I think about it breaks my heart. I will like to know if there is a way to track my laptop from the late day logged into my account on March 6, 2018 at 10:48am?
I believe I know which student has stolen a laptop from my classroom. Is there any way I can track down by the student’s login name/information?
This is not a reliable solution and is completely wrong. This is a totally misleading article.
The link provided on where to track the Chromebooks is not a Chromebook tracking tool but a page that tracks where a Google account was last used. So simply removing the account from the Chromebook (sign-out) will immediately stop https://myaccount.google.com/device-activity from recording the activity. The most that this page can show at best is the last place, and time and date, where and when the account was last used on the device.
Please stop providing wrong expectations to users.
thank you for sharing this with us all. my friend at school got his Chromebook stolen and know we know how to find it.
i have a secobd hand chromebook it was a nice gift regifted to me recently. so they kno i have a second hand laptop n what # it had sn #, so shud i expect a team of armed n baged policemen investigating my life and then like desttoying bc i have laptop n i just called to tell the company that i had, who knos lile my bf gave it to me his friends gave it to him like am i getting arrested for this no id hope not i didnt know i was risking that when accepted so what to do.
i think it was ur laptop prolly that i got. jk im in mASsachuse ts kno acer knows it too. now bc i cud return it before that fate was to become of me if u wud tell me pls itpeeps or police officers pls…
If someone took chrome book out of. Country can they still findout which country it is in
how can I track back my stolen samsung chromebook 3. stolen in 128 days ago
So, thanks for being such a ‘fake geek’, haha. I like it! Sooo… my chromebook isn’t missing, in fact I’m typing on it right now. But as I myself am a little bit of a geek, once in a while I sift out some junk and apps to clean up. There was one called, ‘wifihotspotmanagement.com and my safey app flagged it as high alert. When I wen’t to remove the app a blank screen popped up all of my already open normal tabs were gone. And the screen showed one sentence in the top left corner that said, ‘an error has occurred, please go back and try again’ or something like that. Chromebook was frozen, shut it off manually for a few minutes and seemed back to normal (sot of). WOW this story is getting real long, sorry. I live alone, and have a very -savvy computer soon to be ex-husband.
If you haven’t fallen asleep with this story-telling… is it possible for somebody to track your location by seeing where your CB is?
Any insight would help.
Thanks so much!
Emily
I just wanted to know if you misplace it in your own home if the Chromebook can make a noise like some Android or iPhone to do
i want to track my chromebook