Storing Chromebooks Long Term

Storing Chromebooks long term

When the school year ends, you might wonder what to do with your Chromebooks. Here are some best practices to help ensure your devices work as expected for next year’s class.

Battery tips

  • Do not let the Chromebook battery fully discharge over the summer. Even when a Chromebook is off, its battery continues to slowly lose charge. If left long enough, the batteries might no longer function and can’t be recharged.
  • At the same time, you shouldn’t keep Chromebooks plugged into a cart or charger while in storage for months. This can reduce battery life and lead to other issues. If you’re storing Chromebooks for a long time, charge them to at least 80% and unplug them from a battery source, following the instructions below.

Storage tips

If you plan to store Chromebooks for an extended period, follow these long-term storage steps:

  • Do not stack more than 7 devices on top of one another, because the weight of several Chromebooks can damage screens. Place the Chromebooks in a secure location, such as a cabinet or cart where they won’t be accidentally knocked over.
  • Store your Chromebooks in a cool, dry area. Be sure they avoid direct sunlight.
  • Follow the instructions below.

Prepare Chromebooks for long-term storage

  1. Charge your Chromebooks so that the battery is at least 80% full. This ensures that even when the battery discharges while unplugged over the summer, it won’t fully run out of power.
  2. To slow the discharge rate during storage, do not physically remove the battery from the Chromebook for storage. Instead, take the following steps:
    1. Connect the device to a charger and turn it on.
    2. Hold Refresh  and Power  at the same time.
    3. While holding these keys, remove the power cable from device and then release the keys.The device should shut down and remain off.
    4. Confirm the battery disconnect worked by pressing the power button. The device should not power on, despite having a battery charge. The Chromebook won’t power on by touching the power button or opening the lid, until you plug the device back to a power source.

This is the ideal way to store devices. It reduces battery discharge to a minimum, prevents constant charge and discharge from reducing the battery life, and keeps the Chromebook in a stable, powered-off state.

Note: If you can’t put your model of Chromebook into the battery disconnect state described above, charge the battery to at least 80%. Then, turn off the Chromebook, unplug it from a power source, and store it in a cool, dry place.

Get your Chromebooks ready for school

A week before classes resume, get the Chromebooks ready for students.

  1. Connect the Chromebooks to a charger and a power source.This will get them out of the battery disconnect state.
  2. Power up your devices.
  3. Connect your Chromebooks to Wi-Fi and update them to the latest Chrome OS release. This can take time, as multiple Chrome OS versions might have been released since the last time the device was updated. For details, see the Chrome Enterprise release notes.