How to disable Google Chrome extension autoupdate

If the chrome extension is on Github (which many if not most of them are), you can simply:

(1.) clone the Github repo,

(2.) reset the head to the version that you want, and

(3.) enable Developer Mode at chrome://extensions/

(4.) select the "Load unpacked" option from chrome://extensions/, and then select the folder enclosing the source code for the extension.

I recently used this technique to downgrade my version of Reddit Link Opener, which no longer supports users who have opted out of using that site's redesign. This worked for me on MacOS, but should work on all platforms.

If the extension is loaded as an unpacked extension (in the manner described above), it will NOT auto-update to a newer version.


Solutions I've found for this:

1. Disabling a concrete extension update

That's what I wanted!

You can do this by editing the extension's manifest.json file:

  • On Windows: C:\Users\<USERNAME>\AppData\Local\Google\Chrome\User Data\Default\Extensions\<EXTENSION-ID>\<VERSION>\manifest.json (find out the extension's ID by enabling Developer Mode in the extension settings page)

  • On MacOS: Open /Users/USERNAME/Library/Application Support/Google/Chrome/Default/Extensions/EXTENSION-ID/VERSION/manifest.json in a text editor.

  • On Ubuntu for Chromium: ${HOME}/.config/chromium/Default/Preferences

In this file, set the "update_url" property to something invalid like "https://localhost" for example. For the given url, it makes auto-updating that extension as simply impossible.

Source: https://productforums.google.com/d/msg/chrome/l3zOZeO-5-M/Y7VaR0KCWNIJ

2. Disabling all Google Chrome extension updates

  • For any OS: Just type chrome://plugins/ at address bar and turn Google Update plugin off. Source: How to disable Google Chrome auto update?

  • For Windows OS: Set Registry values:

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies\Google\Update]
"AutoUpdateCheckPeriodMinutes"=dword:00000000
"UpdateDefault"=dword:00000000

Source: Making Google Chrome leave itself alone


Hi all those solitions for me have one disadvantage is that all extensions have no updates, I needed to stop only for one extension in this case and wanted al the other to keep making updates.

I think I found the solutuion for windows

Go to C:\Users\YOUR_NAME_HERE\AppData\Local\Google\Chrome\User Data\Default\Extensions\YOUR_FOLDER APP HERE\

In that folder app click in properties and select read only an aplly that to all subfolders and files... for now for me solved the problem !!!

Regards xichas


Disabling update for a specific extension:

This can be achieved with the system policies, (more details here)

For Linux :

  • Get the installed extensions list (IDs), this can be found with ls -l ~/.config/google-chrome/Default/Extensions or chrome://extensions
  • Create the necessary directory if not present mkdir -p /etc/opt/chrome/policies/managed (with root)
  • Create the needed file policies file touch /etc/opt/chrome/policies/managed/google-chrome.json
  • Edit that file with the code bellow
  • open the page chrome://policy/ and reload the policies
{
  "ExtensionSettings": {
    "ghijklmnopabcdefghijklmnopabcdef": {
      "update_url": "https://127.0.0.1/update_url",
      "override_update_url": true
    },
    "YOUR-EXTENSION-ID-LIKE-THE-PREVIOUS-EXAMPLE": {
      "update_url": "https://127.0.0.1/update_url",
      "override_update_url": true
    }
  }
}

Note: this can not be applied widely to all extensions in a single rule and also for each newly installed extension the file need to be updated