Let’s discuss Enable Clear Browsing Data when MS Edge Closes to Balancing User Convenience and Data Privacy using Intune. It is a security policy that forces Microsoft Edge to delete all browsing data, including form data, passwords, and browsing history, every time the browser is closed.
With this policy, you can ensures that no sensitive browsing data is left on a shared or public computer. This is particularly important in environments like kiosks, libraries, or shared workstations where multiple users might access the same device.
This policy mostly helps organizations to reduce the risk of a data breach by automatically clearing browsing data. If a device is lost or stolen, there’s less sensitive information for an unauthorized party to potentially access.
Clear Browsing Data when MS Edge Closes Policy is beneficial for admins, users and organization. By enabling this policy, admins can avoid the complexity of managing and troubleshooting browsing data issues. This policy can be easily applied to every devices in an organization.
Table of Contents
Enable Clear Browsing Data when MS Edge Closes to Balancing User Convenience and Data Privacy using Intune
This policy can prevent certain browser issues. Many common problems, like a website not loading correctly or a login loop, are caused by corrupted cached data or cookies. Automatically clearing this data helps to prevent these issues from occurring in the first place.
- Enable or Disable Clear Browsing Data on Exit Policy in MS Edge Browser using M365 Admin Center
- Enable the Clear Browsing Data on Exit option using the Intune Settings Catalog
- Enable Security State Policy to Prevent Data Leakage in MS Edge Browser using Intune
Example Scenario
This policy is mainly applicable for Hospitals and clinics. Imagine you are an IT admin in a Hospital and using Microsoft Edge is the default browser. In this environment, nurses and doctors often share computers at workstations on wheels (WOWs) or at different points of care.
Enabling this policy ensures that when a healthcare provider logs off or closes the browser, all patient data and other sensitive information are automatically cleared, preventing unauthorized access by the next user.
How to Configure Clear Browsing Data when MS Edge Closes
By signing in Microsoft Intune admin center, you can start configuring Clear Browsing Data when MS Edge Closes. Open the Microsoft Intune Admin center. Go to Devices > Configuration > +Create >+ New Policy.
Choosing Platform and Profile
To create the profile, you have to select platform and profile type. It is a very necessary step and you cannot skip this. Here I would like to configure the policy to Windows 10 and later platform and settings catalog profile. Then click on the Create button.
Adding Basic Details
Basic tab helps you to give an identify for the settings you have to select for policy creation. You should add appropriate name and description for policy. Here is Name is mandatory and description is optional. After adding this click on the Next button.
Configure Clear Browsing Data when MS Edge Closes
On the Configuration Tab, you can see the +Add settings hyperlink to access specific settings. When you click on this hyperlink, you will get Settings Picker. Here, I would like to select the settings by browsing by Category. I choose Microsoft Edge. Then, I choose Clear browsing data when Microsoft Edge closes settings.
Disable Clear Browsing Data when MS Edge Closes
If you disable or don’t configure this policy, users can configure the Clear browsing data option in Settings. Disable is the default value of this policy and If you want to go with this policy, click on the Next Button.
Enable Clear Browsing Data when MS Edge Closes
If you enable this policy, don’t configure the ‘AllowDeletingBrowserHistory‘ (Enable deleting browser and download history) or the ‘ClearCachedImagesAndFilesOnExit‘ (Clear cached images and files when Microsoft Edge closes) policy, because they all deal with deleting browsing data.
If you configure the preceding policies and this policy, all browsing data is deleted when Microsoft Edge closes, regardless of how you configured ‘AllowDeletingBrowserHistory’ or ‘ClearCachedImagesAndFilesOnExit‘.
Adding Scope Tags
Scope Tags sections help you add restrictions to the visibility of the Policy. But it is not a mandatory step, so you can skip this step. Here, I don’t add scope tags for Copilot Access to Page Context for Microsoft Entra ID Profiles Policy. Click on the Next button.
Assign Policy to Specific Groups
To assign the policy to specific groups, you can use the Assignment Tab. Here I click, +Add groups option under Included groups. I choose a group from the list of groups and click on the Select button. Again, I click on the Select button to continue.
Review + Create Tab
Before completing the policy creation, you can review each tab to avoid misconfiguration or policy failure. After verifying all the details, click on the Create Button. After creating the policy, you will get a success message.
Monitoring Status
The Monitoring Status page shows whether the policy has succeeded or not. To quickly configure the policy and take advantage of the policy sync, the device on the Company Portal, Open the Intune Portal. Go to Devices > Configuration > Search for the Policy. Here, the policy shows as successful.
Client Side Verification
It helps you check the client side and verify the policy status. Open the Client device and open the Event Viewer. Go to Start > Event Viewer. Navigate to Logs: In the left pane, go to Application and Services Logs > Microsoft > Windows > DeviceManagement-Enterprise-Diagnostics-Provider > Admin.
- You will get the success result on Event ID 814
| Event ID Details |
|---|
| MDM PolicyManager: Set policy string, Policy: (ClearBrowsingDataOnExit), Area: (microsoft_edgev78diff~Policy~microsoft_edge), EnrollmentID requesting merge: (EB427D85-802F-46D9-A3E2-D5B414587F63), Current User: (Device), String: (), Enrollment Type: (0x6) Scope: (0xD). |
How to Remove Assigned Group from Clear Browsing Data when Microsoft Edge Closes
If you want to remove the Assigned group from the policy, it is possible from the Intune Portal. To do this, open the Policy on Intune Portal and edit the Assignments tab and the Remove Policy.
To get more detailed information, you can refer to our previous post – Learn How to Delete or Remove App Assignment from Intune using by Step-by-Step Guide.
How to Delete Clear Browsing Data when Microsoft Edge Closes
You can easily delete the Policy from the Intune Portal. From the Configuration section, you can delete the policy. It will completely remove it from the client devices.
For detailed information, you can refer to our previous post – How to Delete Allow Clipboard History Policy in Intune Step by Step Guide.
Need Further Assistance or Have Technical Questions?
Join the LinkedIn Page and Telegram group to get the latest step-by-step guides and news updates. Join our Meetup Page to participate in User group meetings. Also, Join the WhatsApp Community to get the latest news on Microsoft Technologies. We are there on Reddit as well.
Author
Anoop C Nair has been Microsoft MVP for 10 consecutive years from 2015 onwards. He is a Workplace Solution Architect with more than 22+ years of experience in Workplace technologies. He is a Blogger, Speaker, and Local User Group Community leader. His primary focus is on Device Management technologies like SCCM and Intune. He writes about technologies like Intune, SCCM, Windows, Cloud PC, Windows, Entra, Microsoft Security, Career, etc.