- Enabling (and Disabling) Developer Mode Will Wipe Your Chromebook: As part of the process of enabling Developer Mode, your Chromebook will be “powerwashed.” All the user accounts and their files will be removed from your Chromebook. Of course, most of your data should be stored online, and you’re free to log into the Chromebook with the same Google account afterward.
- Google Doesn’t Offer Support For Developer Mode: Google doesn’t officially support this feature. It’s intended for developers (and power users). Google won’t provide support for this stuff. The usual “This may void your warranty” warnings apply — in other words, if you experience a hardware failure in developer mode, just disable developer mode before getting warranty support.
Boot to Recovery Mode
The Recovery screen says “Chrome OS is missing or damaged.” It isn’t, actually — this screen normally just appears when your Chrome OS installation is damaged.
Press Ctrl+D at the Recovery screen. This keyboard shortcut isn’t listed on the screen anywhere — you have to know it ahead of time. This prevents less-knowledgable Chromebook users from poking around and enabling it without knowing what they’re doing.
You’ll see a screen saying “To turn OS Verification OFF, press ENTER.” Press Enter to enable developer mode. This disables the “operating system verification” feature, so you can modify Chrome OS’s system files and it won’t complain and refuse to boot. Chrome OS normally verifies itself before booting to protect the operating system from being tampered with without your permission.
Booting With Developer Mode Enabled
You’ll now see a scary-looking message saying “OS
verification is OFF” when you
boot your Chromebook. The message informs you that
your Chromebook’s files can’t be verified — in
other words, that the Chromebook is in Developer
Mode. If you ignore this message for long enough,
your Chromebook will urgently beep at you to get
your attention. (a VERY LOUD double beep)
This screen is designed for security purposes. A Chromebook in developer mode doesn’t have the usual security features. For example, you could install a keylogger on a Chromebook using your developer mode access and then pass it along to someone. If they typed in their password, you could capture it and spy on them. That scary boot message helps keep typical users safe, guiding them through the process of disabling developer mode if they don’t know what’s happening.
To boot your Chromebook anyway, you’ll need to press Ctrl+D when you see this screen. That’ll let you quickly boot without hearing the annoying beep. You could also just wait a few more seconds — after beeping at you a bit, your Chromebook will boot automatically.
The first time you boot your Chromebook after flipping this switch, it’ll inform you that it’s preparing your system for Developer Mode. This may take several minutes — you can look at the progress bar at the top of the screen to see how much time is left.
