Chrome Story

How To Turn Off Google Chrome Auto Update

One of the most attractive features of Google Chrome is its silent updates option which makes your life easier by managing your software update without bothering you for anything related to it.

However, this cool feature can create problems too. For example, if a company decides to install Google Chrome on all computers and ask all its employees to start using it, we will have a situation where thousands of Google Chrome Installations in a single office trying to check for updates and downloading updates. This will create problems for network admins there for sure!

So, here is how you can disable this feature, from Google’s help page.

Turning off Auto-Updates on Windows

To turn off auto-updates of Google Chrome on Windows, you need to instruct Google Update to not update it.  To do this, you can either:

  1. Use the Google Update ADM templates provided on this page or as described in this article.
  2. Set the value of HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies\Google\Update\AutoUpdateCheckPeriodMinutes to the REG_SZ (string) value of “0”

More information about Google Update’s group policy support is here.

Turning off Auto-Updates on Mac

Note: By turning off auto-update, you miss the opportunity to get updated to the latest security updates. You will need to keep a close eye on Google Chrome releases from time to time and keep your set of installations secure. I personally do not recommend disabling Google Chrome auto-update.

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  1. vasa1

    Google could easily boost the number of Chrome users by using a more liberal policy re. the updating procedure as well as by giving users a choice to install Chrome wherever they wish.

    Reply
    1. chrome story

      sorry, I didn’t understand this part of your comment “giving users a choice to install Chrome wherever they wish”

      Reply
      1. vasa1

        Choice of directory or drive.

        Reply
        1. chrome story

          oh ok.. got it ! thanks !

          Reply
  2. Unreal Mathilda

    I am on a Win 7 computer without any group network. I don’t see Google under Software/Policies. Help.

    Reply
    1. Unreal Mathilda

      Francis,
      Thanks for the reply. Which link? http://www.chromium.org/administrators/policy-templates ?
      If so, I don’t know how to make use of either template?

      This link: http://www.google.com/support/installer/bin/answer.py?answer=146164?

      It’s too complicated for me.

      Please advise.

      BTW, what do you think of the 2 bits of advice given in http://www.google.com/support/forum/p/Chrome/thread?tid=680d662f84e496be&hl=en. Poster says he just goes to about:plugins and clicks disable in the “Google Updater”. The other bit of advice he gives is to go to msconfig and disable Google Update exe from starting up (in the Startup tab).

      Reply
  3. fran

    not working

    Reply
  4. Ralf

    I managed to find a way to completely stop google chrome from auto

    updating itself and you can still re-enable it to update when needed.

    Just follow the steps below:
    1. First, you need to find where the google chrome updater is located
    (they keep on moving it every once in a while), you can either search
    for it with windows search or you can right click on the google chrome
    shortcut then hit “properties” and on the shortcut tab hit “Open file
    location” the “Update” folder usually is in the google folder just 2
    folders back from the location of the google launcher where the
    shortcut will bring you.

    2. Make a backup/archive of the “Update” folder using winrar or any
    similar application you prefer.

    3. Delete the “Update” folder (I’m not sure if you need to close chrome
    first, but to be sure just close any running google application first
    including the updater from the task manager if you can.).

    4. Open chrome, then hit on “The Generals” Button?? which is the former
    “wrench” icon. and click on the “About Google Chrome” button from the
    drop down to see this “Update failed (error: 3)” which will verify that
    the updater is no longer working.

    Then, in the case that you need to update chrome again just extract the
    “Update” folder from step 2 in its proper location (so, make sure that
    you note where that is before deleting the folder) and you will be able
    to update google chrome again.

    Sorry the english,
    Goodluck..

    Reply

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