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GoGuardian Admin associates browsing activity with student accounts, not with specific devices. This means you cannot search by device serial number or look up which device a student last used. You can find any student by name or email using Global Search.

Understand How GoGuardian Admin Identifies Students

GoGuardian extensions are installed on student account organizational units (OUs) in the Google Admin Console, not on device OUs. When a student signs in to any managed device with their school Google account, the extension follows the account. The activity recorded in GoGuardian Admin belongs to the student’s account regardless of which physical device they were using. This design means one student account can generate activity across many devices, and one device can show activity from many students. The connection GoGuardian tracks is always between a student account and the content they accessed, not between a device and the content.

Know What GoGuardian Admin Does Not Support

GoGuardian Admin does not support the following device-based lookups:
  • Searching for a student by device serial number
  • Viewing which device a student used during a specific session
  • Seeing a history of which devices a student’s account has been active on
These lookups require device-level data that GoGuardian does not collect. Because the extensions install at the account level, device hardware identifiers are not part of the data GoGuardian Admin records. To locate a student in GoGuardian Admin, use Global Search and enter the student’s name or school email address. Global Search returns matching student records regardless of which device or devices the student has used.
If a student’s name is not appearing in Global Search at all, see A Student Name Shows as Pending for common causes and fixes.

Resources

A Student Name Shows as Pending

Resolve student names that appear as Pending instead of the student’s actual name.

Review Browsing Activity

Review browsing activity filtered by student, org unit, date, and content type.

Install GoGuardian Extensions

Understand how GoGuardian extensions are deployed to student accounts through Google Admin Console OUs.

Chrome Extensions APIs

Review what Chrome extensions can access at the API level, which defines what GoGuardian can and cannot detect on student devices.
Last modified on July 15, 2026