Remove Enterprise Enrollment on Chromebook

Chromebooks in companies are enrolled to be working only under the company rules, here is what it means and how to remove it.

Enterprise enrollment means that the Chromebook is managed by the company, the configuration can only be modified by the IT team of the company, and the Chromebook won’t allow you to access anything the IT department blocks. It allows the IT team to manage all the computers of the company in the same way, every Chromebook has the same configuration and the same rules, they just have to change one thing on their side to apply a modification on every Chromebook.

Hopefully, this enterprise enrollment can be removed not only by the IT team but also by the user having the Chromebook. There are ways to remove enterprise enrollment by yourself but the best thing you can do is to bring back the Chromebook to the store you bought it as they should have removed it themselves.

How to remove Enterprise Enrollment on Chromebook?

Removing the enrollment will allow the user to have full access to his Chromebook, removing all configuration and rules applied by the IT team of the company. There are different ways to remove the enrollment, depending on if you are on the IT team side or on the user side.

To remove Enterprise Enrollment you can:

• Unenroll using the admin console if you are the administrator of the Chromebooks of the company
• Enable developer mode
• Use a trick to bypass the admin block

I tested each of these methods and the steps are detailed below. For legal reasons, you can only do this on a Chromebook in your possession. If you are not allow and try to remove enterprise enrollment on a Chromebook, it will be considered as a hack.

Unenroll using the admin console

You can remove the enterprise enrollment of any Chromebook that you manage using these steps:

1. Log in to your Google Admin console
2. Go to the console home page, and then go to Devices → Chrome devices.
3. Search for the Chromebook you want to unenroll, you can use the filters to find it.
4. Check the box next to the device line
5. Then at the top of the page, click on Deprovision selected devices
6. Follow the instructions, you will have to choose whether or not you want to factory reset the Chromebook and erase all the user data.
7. The Enterprise Enrollment has been removed for this Chromebook

Enabling developer mode

If you are not an administrator of a business or a school, then you can’t access to the admin console. Another way to remove enterprise enrollment for a Chromebook is to enable the developer mode:

• Sign in to your Chromebook and remove any external drives
• Press keys Esc + Refresh + Power. The Refresh key is the 4th key from the left at the top of your keyboard.
• Press Ctrl + D.
• Press Space or press Enter depending on your Chromebook.

Your Chromebook will then restart in developer mode and will be put off the enterprise enrollment. If the developer mode has been disabled by the previous admin, then you need to use another way. But as the developer mode is useful to be able to code on Chromebook, there is still a chance that you can enable it.

Last way to get rid of Enterprise Enrollment

This is the last way to remove enrollment that I’m aware of. You will have to open your Chromebook to unplug hardware components, this will revoke any warranty and static charges may damage the Chromebook.

1. Turn off your Chromebook
2. Unscrew the back cover
3. Unscrew the battery. You will have access to the connection between the battery and the motherboard
4. Unplug the power cable between the battery and the motherboard
5. Open your Chromebook and press the power button for 30 seconds with the battery unplugged.
6. Place the battery and the screws back
7. Turn on your Chromebook and press the keys Esc + Refresh + Power. It can take several minutes to boot, you need to wait until you see the Chrome screen.
8. Finally when “ChromeOS is missing or damaged”, press Ctrl + D.

Enterprise enrollment should be removed now. Be sure to plug back the power cable between the battery and the motherboard correctly or you could have low power charger issue later.

What happens once enterprise enrollment is removed

Once you removed the enterprise enrollment from your Chromebook, you will have full access to all the features and the admin of the company won’t be able to do any changes to it.

The administrator of the enterprise or school will receive a notification that the Chromebook has been disconnected from their network. They will be aware of this but they won’t be able to access the Chromebook anymore. If you removed the enterprise enrollment by yourself, you won’t be able to enroll it again, only the administrator that can access the admin console can enroll again the Chromebook.

Author

Maxime Levesque

Maxime Levesque is a technical engineer with more than 5 years of professional experience. He is an expert in computer and phones, mostly on Apple products. Maxime is also the founder of TechBrowser.

Follow @LevMaxime