Configure Microsoft Edge browser on macOS devices

Platforms

macOS

Products

IntuneMicrosoft Edge

Result

Edge on managed Macs gets your policies: forced sign-in, sync, favorites bar and default search

Overview

Deploy Microsoft Edge to Macs with Intune and configure its policies with a property list (Preference file) or the settings catalog.

Microsoft Edge and its business features can be deployed to many device types with Microsoft Intune. On macOS you don't need to package or wrap the app, because Intune has a built-in app type for Edge (see Add Microsoft Edge to macOS devices).

After Edge is installed, you can configure its policies in three ways:

1. Settings catalog
2. Property list file (.plist), uploaded as a Preference file profile
3. Custom profile (a .mobileconfig built from the same .plist)

The settings catalog works like Administrative Templates (ADMX) on Windows: the Edge policies are built into the Intune admin center and ready to deploy. In 2021 the settings catalog was still in public preview. Not every setting was available, and when one setting failed, often the whole policy failed with it.

That's why in this post I used a property list (.plist) file. It takes more work the first time, but in 2021 it was the most reliable way to deliver all Edge policies, including managed favorites.

I wrote a similar post for Google Chrome on Windows: Manage Google Chrome Browser.

Prerequisites

Before you start, check that you have the following.

Configuration

First build the .plist with the policies you need, then upload it to Intune as a Preference file.

Create the property list (.plist)

Create an example .plist file in Terminal on a Mac. This command sets the BrowserSignin policy to 2 (force users to sign in):

/usr/bin/defaults write ~/Desktop/com.microsoft.Edge.plist BrowserSignin -int 2

Note: the file name must be com.microsoft.Edge.plist (case sensitive). The same file applies to all Edge channels.

Convert the binary .plist to XML:

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

Now you can open the file in any text editor, for example Notepad++ on Windows or Visual Studio Code. It looks like this:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN" "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd">
<plist version="1.0">
<dict>
	<key>BrowserSignin</key>
	<integer>2</integer>
</dict>
</plist>

On a Mac, Xcode shows the same file as a list of keys:

Add more policies to the file. You find them in the Microsoft Edge browser policies reference, or in Edge itself: open edge://policy and select Show policies with no value:

The reference shows each policy's data type and an example value for Mac, for example FavoritesBarEnabled:

My finished com.microsoft.Edge.plist with a few policies (for the search URL I use a simple Google address here):

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN" "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd">
<plist version="1.0">
<dict>
	<key>BrowserAddProfileEnabled</key>
	<false/>
	<key>BrowserSignin</key>
	<integer>2</integer>
	<key>DefaultSearchProviderEnabled</key>
	<true/>
	<key>DefaultSearchProviderName</key>
	<string>Google</string>
	<key>DefaultSearchProviderSearchURL</key>
	<string>https://www.google.com/search?q={searchTerms}</string>
	<key>FavoritesBarEnabled</key>
	<true/>
	<key>ForceSync</key>
	<true/>
</dict>
</plist>

Upload the Preference file to Intune

Before you upload, remove everything except the key-value pairs: the XML header, the DOCTYPE line, and the <plist> and <dict> tags. My Preference file:

<key>BrowserAddProfileEnabled</key>
<false/>
<key>BrowserSignin</key>
<integer>2</integer>
<key>DefaultSearchProviderEnabled</key>
<true/>
<key>DefaultSearchProviderName</key>
<string>Google</string>
<key>DefaultSearchProviderSearchURL</key>
<string>https://www.google.com/search?q={searchTerms}</string>
<key>FavoritesBarEnabled</key>
<true/>
<key>ForceSync</key>
<true/>

In the Intune admin center, go to Devices > Manage devices > Configuration > Create > New policy, select macOS > Templates > Preference file (see Add a property list file to macOS devices) and upload the file:

• Preference domain name (case sensitive): com.microsoft.Edge

Assign the profile to the Macs that have Microsoft Edge installed.

Update (October 2026): the settings catalog is generally available and is now the recommended way. Create the policy under Create > New policy > macOS > Settings catalog and add settings from the Microsoft Edge category, see Configure Microsoft Edge policy settings in Intune. Use the Preference file only for settings that the catalog doesn't have.

User Experience

Finally, check the result on a Mac that received the profile.

In 2021 Edge on macOS had no automatic sign-in (SSO) to the browser, so users signed in manually with their Microsoft Entra ID account (user@company.com). You can force this with the BrowserSignin policy (2 = force users to sign in), and the sign-in prompt appears as soon as Edge starts:

Update (October 2026): with the Microsoft Enterprise SSO plug-in or Platform SSO, both delivered by Company Portal, users still sign in to their Edge profile once, and then get single sign-on to work websites in Edge.

Edge shows Managed by your organization, and sync is turned on by the ForceSync policy:

The favorites bar is shown. To push company favorites, use the ManagedFavorites policy (see its Mac example):

On edge://policy the policies show Status OK:

The Preference file profile installed by Intune on the Mac (System Settings > General > Device Management on macOS 13 and later):