Configure Microsoft Edge policy settings for macOS using a property list

This article describes how to configure Microsoft Edge on macOS using a property list (.plist) file. You'll learn how to create this file and then deploy it to Microsoft Intune.

For more information, see About Information Property List Files (Apple's website) and Custom payload settings.

Configure Microsoft Edge policies on macOS

The first step is to create your plist. You can create the plist file with any text editor. Another option is to use Terminal to create the configuration profile. However, it's easier to create and edit a plist file with a tool that formats the XML code for you. Xcode is a free integrated development environment that's available at the following locations:

For a list of supported policies and their preference key names, see Microsoft Edge browser policies reference. In the policy templates file, which can be downloaded from the Microsoft Edge Enterprise landing page, there's a plist example (itadminexample.plist) in the examples folder. This file contains all supported data types that you can customize to define your policy settings.

After you create the contents of your plist, name the plist using the Microsoft Edge preference domain, which is "com.microsoft.Edge". This name is case-sensitive and shouldn't include the channel you're targeting because it applies to all Microsoft Edge channels. The plist file name must be com.microsoft.Edge.plist.

Important

Starting with build 78.0.249.2, all Microsoft Edge channels on macOS read from the com.microsoft.Edge preference domain. All prior releases read from a channel specific domain, such as com.microsoft.Edge.Dev for Dev channel.

The last step is to deploy your plist to your users' Mac devices using your preferred MDM provider, such as Microsoft Intune. For instructions see Deploy your plist.

Create a configuration profile using Terminal

  1. In Terminal, use the following command to create a plist for Microsoft Edge on your desktop with your preferred settings:

    /usr/bin/defaults write ~/Desktop/com.microsoft.Edge.plist RestoreOnStartup -int 1
    
  2. Convert the plist from binary to plain text format:

    /usr/bin/plutil -convert xml1 ~/Desktop/com.microsoft.Edge.plist
    

After converting the file verify that your policy data is correct and contains the settings, you want for your configuration profile.

Note

Only key value pairs should be in the contents of the plist or xml file. Prior to uploading your file into Intune remove all the <plist> and <dict> values, and xml headers from your file. The file should only contain key value pairs.

Deploy your plist

Using Microsoft Intune, create a new device configuration profile targeting the macOS platform and select the Preference file profile type. Target com.microsoft.Edge as the preference domain name and upload your plist. For more information, see Add a property list file to macOS devices using Microsoft Intune.

For Jamf, upload the .plist file as a Custom Settings payload.

See also