Manual Installation (Testing & Evaluation)

Install Sherlock on a single machine for testing or evaluation. This method is not recommended for production: use GPO, Intune/MDM, or JAMF for enterprise deployment.

Prerequisites

Step 1: Download the extension

1. Sign in to the Sherlock admin dashboard
2. Go to Settings → General
3. Click Download extension to download the ZIP file
4. Extract the ZIP to a folder on your computer (e.g. C:\Sherlock or ~/Sherlock)

Step 2: Load the extension

1. Open Chrome and go to chrome://extensions
2. Enable Developer mode (toggle in the top-right corner)
3. Click Load unpacked
4. Select the extracted folder (the one containing manifest.json)
5. The Sherlock extension appears in your toolbar

For Edge, the steps are the same at edge://extensions.

Step 3: Enroll the device

1. Click the Sherlock icon in the browser toolbar
2. Enter your Enrollment Key (from Settings → General in the admin dashboard)
3. Click Enroll
4. The extension connects to your organization and starts monitoring

Step 4: Verify

• In the admin dashboard, go to Devices
• Your test device should appear within a minute
• Visit an AI platform (e.g. chatgpt.com): the event should appear in your activity feed

Important notes

• Developer mode extensions may be disabled by Chrome: Chrome periodically shows a warning and may disable sideloaded extensions on unmanaged devices. This is expected and is why manual install is for testing only.
• No automatic updates: manually installed extensions do not auto-update. You will need to re-download from the admin dashboard and reload the extension to get new versions. There is no workaround for this on unmanaged devices.
• For production deployment, use GPO, Intune/MDM, JAMF, or Chrome Cloud Management for silent install, auto-updates, and tamper protection.