Bulk Disable or Re-Enable Devices

Gopher for Chrome > Push updates to Google > Disable/re-enable devices

There may be situations where you may need to disable many or all student devices at once and later enable those devices. Bulk disable in Gopher for Chrome is how you'd complete that task. Disable/re-enable is only available when loading from the admin console or via list.

What Does It Mean When a Device Is Disabled?

When a Chrome device is disabled, all the user can see when turning on the Chrome device is a screen telling them that it’s been disabled, and the contact information for where to return the device. You can control your domain's return address and contact phone number from the Google Workspace Admin console.

Caution: Your devices will not be properly disabled unless you ensure that Forced Re-Enrollment is turned ON

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Device disabling does the following...

  • Signs out any user on the device and takes them to the device disabled page. This page above informs anyone using the device that it’s disabled and has return instructions that you can customize for your domain.
  • Once the disabled page is displayed, a user cannot sign in to the device, and it will stay in a disabled state until an admin re-enables or deprovisions the device.
  • Returns licenses associated with the device(s) to the license pool while it remains in a disabled state.
  • Removes the serial number from the default Provisioned view. To see the device in your Admin console, select Disabled from the filter.

Disabling Devices

To disable devices, you can load devices from the entire domain and filter out disabled devices. Or, if you have the serial numbers, you can load the devices via a List of IDs to work with just the intended devices.

  1. Once the devices are loaded (via Admin console or list), click the Push Updates to Google tab of the sidebar.
  2. Click Disable/re-enable devices to kick off the stepper.
    disableDevicesStep1.png
  3. Select Disable devices as the action to take.
  4. Click Next.
  5. Click APPLY STATUS FILTER to filter for devices to disable.
  6. Apply any additional filters to the sheet.
  7. Click Next
  8. Review the number of devices to be disabled.
  9. Click Disable.
  10. To confirm you want to disable these devices, click GO AHEAD. Your sheet updates to show the disable action. 
  11. Click Done to close the stepper. 

Re-Enabling Devices

You will want to re-enable a disabled device when a misplaced device is found or a lost device is returned. You can also use this feature if you accidentally mark a Chrome device as disabled. This feature works just like the disable feature but in reverse!

Important note from Google help center: 

Chrome licenses are returned to your organization's license pool when devices are disabled or unenrolled due to a same-model replacement. You must have available licenses to re-enroll a device or re-enable a disabled device.

  1. Once the devices are loaded, click the Update tab of the sidebar.
  2. Click Disable/re-enable devices to kick off the stepper.
  3. Select Re-enable devices as the action to take.
  4. Click Next.
  5. Click APPLY STATUS FILTER to filter for devices to reenable.
  6. Apply any additional filters to the sheet.
  7. Click Next
  8. Review the number of devices to be reenabled.
  9. Click RE-ENABLE.
  10. To confirm you want to re-enable these devices, click GO AHEAD. Your sheet updates to show the re-enabled action.
  11. Click Done to close the stepper. 

 

Document Version Date Description of Change
1.0 2/23/2024 Updated title to title case
1.1 7/18/2024 Minor text updates, reverify
1.2 8/21/2024 Capitalize A in Admin console
1.3 12/16/2024 Minor text updates, reverify

 

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