Chromebooks Will Now Show the AUE of Your Device Under Settings
One of the biggest advantages of Chromebooks is how quickly and smoothly they receive critical updates from Google. The updates tend to either beef up your device’s feature set or improve the mechanisms put in place to keep it secure.
However, the duration at which your device receives official OS updates from Google isn’t eternal with the company employing very rigid and complex reasoning behind how and why it has an Auto-update Policy in place.
Generally, a Chromebook will receive the instantaneous System update for 6.5 years but this isn’t necessarily a straight line.
Buying a Chromebook today does not guarantee updates till mid-2025 because of Auto Update Expiration (“AUE”) date is subject to component iteration and model, not when the Chromebook was released.
Google already has a detailed Auto Update Policy page where it nonchalantly hands out the death penalty to almost every Chromebook to ever hit the market.
The company recommends buyers browse through the Auto Update Expiration page before making any Chromebook purchase decisions but it will be far fetched presume the average person would know such a thing even existed in the place.
But if recent movements in the Chromium Gerrit is anything to go by, Chrome OS will show the date after which a Chromebook will no longer receive software support from the company.
The feature is supposedly live for many but as you can see from the screenshot below, my canary build for the Dell Chromebook 13 model 7310 hasn’t been given the death sentence..yet— maybe it might live forever?
However, Gabriel from chromeunboxed was able to get the AUE date show up by heading over to settings page and clicking on About Chrome OS then Additional details. This should reveal the End of Life date for your device. Clicking “Learn More” will take users to the support page that details the Final Software Update.
