Removing a school managed account from personal Lenovo Chromebook.

[Llirrom]

A student has been using their personal chromebook to access their school account.

 

I am at a loss as to go about removing the work profile without deleting the users main account? So far I have tried:

• Logging into the personal account and remove the user from there but the work account doesn't appear.

• Ending the sessions for the user in google admin

• Force-Sign out and resetting the sign-in cookies.

I am unsure of the correct way to remove this profile in ChromeOS?

[dmj]

52 minutes ago, Llirrom said:

 

I am unsure of the correct way to remove this profile in ChromeOS?

 

Just delete the main user account - as soon as they log in it will sync back.

The fix for 99% of chromebook issues is to just reimage.

[NPostill]

Hi there,

 

Can I see if I have this correct?

 

The student has a personal Chromebook that they log into with both their own personal Google account and also their School Google account.  You want to remove the School Google account from the personal Chromebook?

 

You remove a Google account from a Chromebook by logging out of the account, returning to the login screen, clicking the down arrow next to the account name and selecting Remove Account.  

 

Hope this helps

 

Nick

[Llirrom]

Hey Nick,

 

The student has the work account as the owner account. Clicking the down arrow on the log-in screen only shows the message that the account is administrated by the school (Or something along those lines), this removes the option to sign out. 

 

I am unsure of any way in Google Admin to remove this as the chromebook does not show up as a provisioned device or anywhere in Google Admin for that matter.

 

 

[machy]

Powerwash it?

[Llirrom]

If that's the only option, I'll do it- but I'm trying to find a solution that doesn't involve the student having to backup all of their data and reinstate it (As the kids always suck at backing things up).

[dmj]

1 hour ago, Llirrom said:

If that's the only option, I'll do it- but I'm trying to find a solution that doesn't involve the student having to backup all of their data and reinstate it (As the kids always suck at backing things up).

It's a chromebook. Its data is on the web, you have to go out of your way to save anything locally

Edited June 5, 2025 by dmj

[PotNoodleTech]

14 hours ago, dmj said:

It's a chromebook. Its data is on the web, you have to go out of your way to save anything locally

not true, on personal googles a lot of data stil gets stored on the device, including app data from within play store apps.  Some auto store in drive, some don't.  It's risky to nuke it.

 

As it's someone elses property I wouldn't touch it with a bargepole due to Safeguarging/GDPR best practice that's been drilled into us over the years about not touching pupil personal devices.  I certainly wouldnt nuke it from orbit.

[PotNoodleTech]

Also you can block the personal device in  users > open the pupil user > Managed Devices

[paulkerton]

If the very first account they signed into the device with was their school account, then that'll be considered as the primary user of that device. If it isn't an enrolled Chromebook the answer is to powerwash it.

Then they will need to use a personal account as the first one to sign into it once powerwashed. Then they can sign in with their school account after.

[Llirrom]

I have expressly told the student that we can help powerwash it, they need to go away and ensure all of their data is backed up first. I don't feel like I can do any more in warning the student that they are responsible for their data in this instance. 

[dmj]

38 minutes ago, PotNoodleTech said:

not true, on personal googles a lot of data stil gets stored on the device, including app data from within play store apps.  Some auto store in drive, some don't.  It's risky to nuke it.

 

If that's true then Chromebooks have gotten a LOT worse over the last few years. 

Everything that was brought to us was nuked and reimaged and back out the door in under 2mins. Are these becoming like windows devices?

[PotNoodleTech]

17 minutes ago, dmj said:

If that's true then Chromebooks have gotten a LOT worse over the last few years. 

Everything that was brought to us was nuked and reimaged and back out the door in under 2mins. Are these becoming like windows devices?

It's always been like that.  Forcing everything to be stored on drive is an admin console setting.  If you don't turn that on then stuff will still be stored on the chromebook?

[dmj]

53 minutes ago, PotNoodleTech said:

It's always been like that.  Forcing everything to be stored on drive is an admin console setting.  If you don't turn that on then stuff will still be stored on the chromebook?

Perhaps we set that on, I thought it was the default

[PotNoodleTech]

53 minutes ago, dmj said:

Perhaps we set that on, I thought it was the default

Had to set it on here but then we had google since 2014 so I am sure they've changed many of the defaults to be more secure over the years so you may be right about it being on by default now 👍

[Danp]

On 06/06/2025 at 10:37, Llirrom said:

I have expressly told the student that we can help powerwash it, they need to go away and ensure all of their data is backed up first. I don't feel like I can do any more in warning the student that they are responsible for their data in this instance. 

 

Show them how to powerwash it and let them do it themselves.