Here is everything you need to know about downloading and installing ChromeOS Flex. 1. Official Method: Chromebook Recovery Utility

Open your preferred flashing tool (such as BalenaEtcher). Select the extracted .bin file as your source image, select your target USB drive, and click flash.

Runs the OS entirely from the USB drive. This allows you to test your Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, audio, and keyboard compatibility without modifying your hard drive.

Before you search for a shady third-party ISO, understand that Google’s official tool is safer and more reliable. This method creates a bootable USB drive automatically.

No. Officially, ChromeOS Flex does not support dual-boot configurations. The installer is designed to wipe the entire hard drive during deployment.

Once the compressed file has finished downloading:

The utility will download the latest Chrome OS Flex image (approximately 1.5GB to 2GB) and automatically write it to the USB drive as a bootable installer.

Google hosts all recovery images on a public Google Cloud Storage bucket. To get the direct download URL for the RAW image (which you can rename to .iso for some hypervisors):

Open the Chromebook Recovery Utility extension in Chrome.

The file will download as a compressed archive ending in .bin.zip . Once downloaded, extract the archive. You will see a large uncompressed file with a .bin extension. This .bin file functions identically to a traditional ISO file for raw flashing tools. Step 3: Flash with Rufus or BalenaEtcher

For IT administrators or advanced users who prefer using command-line utilities (such as dd on Linux or third-party tools like Rufus or Etcher), Google offers a direct download link to the latest Chrome OS Flex installer image. This method does not require the Chrome browser.