[How To] Prevent Users From Deleting Browsing History In Microsoft Edge

Earlier, we’ve shared you the guide to allow or prevent saving browsing history in Microsoft Edge. Today, in this article, we’ll see how you can prevent users from deleting their browsing history. This may be a specific requirement in case if you’re moderating the users on your system or organization.

In Microsoft Edge, one can easily remove their data including browsing history from its settings UI. To delete your browsing history, go to Microsoft Edge settings > Advanced > Privacy & security > Clear browsing data > Choose what to clear > Browsing history.

While if you’re on multiple users system and want to block other users to delete their browsing history, you can deploy below mentioned registry trick. Note that as of this writing, there is no dedicated Group Policy Object (GPO) setting available to achieve this aim.

You must close Microsoft Edge and make sure it is not even running in background and then perform below mentioned steps.

How To Prevent Users From Deleting Browsing History In Microsoft Edge

1. Press + R and put regedit in Run dialog box to open Registry Editor (if you’re not familiar with Registry Editor, then click here). Click OK.

2. In left pane of Registry Editor window, navigate to following registry key:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\Classes\Local Settings\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\AppContainer\Storage\microsoft.microsoftedge_8wekyb3d8bbwe\MicrosoftEdge\Privacy

3. Now in the right pane of Privacy registry key, look for registry DWORD (REG_DWORD) named as CleanHistory which should set to 1. Double click on this registry DWORD to modify its Value data:

4. Set the Value data to 0 and click OK. Close Registry Editor and reboot the machine to make changes effective.

After restarting your system, the user will no longer be able to delete browsing history on Microsoft Edge.

That’s it!