Chrome ADMX and Group Policy Templates Guide

Introduction

Managing Google Chrome settings across multiple devices and users can be efficiently handled using Chrome ADMX and Group Policy Templates. These templates allow administrators to configure Chrome policies easily. This guide covers downloading and installing the Chrome ADMX templates, setting policies, and checking that they applied.

Downloading and Installing Chrome ADMX Templates

Windows

These steps follow Google’s Windows quick start: Set policies.

1. Download the Chrome browser bundle, or the policy templates zip file on its own, as linked from Google’s Set Chrome browser policies on managed PCs page.
2. Extract the ZIP file to a folder on your local drive.
3. From the admx folder, copy google.admx and chrome.admx to C:\Windows\PolicyDefinitions.
4. From the matching language folder inside admx (for example en-US), copy google.adml and chrome.adml to the same language folder inside C:\Windows\PolicyDefinitions.
5. Open Group Policy to confirm the files loaded. If you see an error, the files are usually in the wrong folder.

macOS

macOS does not use Group Policy. Google’s Mac quick start has you edit the sample com.google.Chrome.plist from the bundle, convert it to a configuration profile, and deploy that profile with your mobile device management (MDM) tool.

Linux

For Linux, edit the sample JSON policy files from the templates zip and place them in /etc/opt/chrome/policies/managed (enforced) or /etc/opt/chrome/policies/recommended (users can change). Make sure non-admin users cannot write to these files.

Common Policy Configurations

Once the ADMX templates are installed, you can configure Chrome policies through the Group Policy Editor.

Mandatory vs Recommended Policies

• Mandatory Policies: Enforced, and users cannot change them. These are under Administrative Templates > Google > Google Chrome.
• Recommended Policies: Default settings that users can override. These are in the separate Google Chrome – Default Settings (users can override) folder.

Both folders appear under Computer Configuration (applies to the device) and User Configuration (applies to signed-in Windows users).

Registry-Based Policy Settings

For those who prefer editing the registry directly, Google’s registry help page uses HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies\Google\Chrome and provides a sample chrome.reg file in the bundle. If the same policy is also set in Group Policy, the Group Policy value wins.

Policy Troubleshooting and Verification

1. Open Chrome and go to chrome://policy to view all applied policies.
2. Click Reload policies, then check that each policy you set shows a Status of OK.
3. Review the Event Viewer logs on Windows for any related errors.
4. Ensure no conflicting policies are set in both user and computer configurations.

Platform-Specific Instructions

Windows

1. Open Group Policy Editor by pressing Windows + R, typing gpedit.msc, and pressing Enter.
2. Navigate to Computer Configuration > Administrative Templates > Google > Google Chrome. Not every policy is in the root folder, so check the subfolders.
3. Open a policy and choose Enabled, Disabled or Not Configured. Restart Chrome for changes to take effect.

macOS

Deploy policies as a configuration profile through your MDM tool. Google notes that macOS deletes manually set policy files every time a user signs in, so commands like defaults write are only good for quick tests.

Linux

Edit the JSON files in /etc/opt/chrome/policies/managed, then restart Chrome so it reads them. Google’s Linux quick start has the details.

For more, see the Chrome Enterprise policy list.