Easy as pie: 1. Click on the on the top right and click on “Settings” 2. Scroll down and click on “Advanced settings” 3. Click on “Content settings” 4.

• View Recent History Chrome

Final Update: Google has implemented an actual policy for this. You can set it per-org-unit in the admin console under Device Management>Chrome Management>User Settings under the Security heading. The policy is 'Clear Browser History' which can be set to 'Do not allow clearing browser history in settings menu'.

UPDATE: Since posting this How-to the Chromium team has changed some behavior of the clear browser history popup box in the settings menu, so this no longer works. I am leaving this How-to up so people who have used it previously are aware of the change. If they ever get around to implementing a 'prevent users from deleting browser history' setting that can actually be set by an Google Apps Admin I will create a new How-to.

Block Google Apps users from clearing the history in google chrome via the C Panel.

Note: Only works on Chromebook, Chromebox, or if the user has signed into Chrome.

3 Steps total

Step 1: Make sure you are not wiping their history data automatically

In the Google Apps Admin Console(C Panel) go to Device Management>Chrome management>User settings. Under the Security heading find the Incognito Mode setting and set it to 'Disallow incognito mode' and set the Browser History setting to 'Always save browser history'. - This does not actually prevent users from clearing the history.

Step 2: Blacklist the History Frame and Clear Browser Data Frames

While still in the User settings panel, under the Content heading find the URL Blocking section. In the URL Blacklist enter the following for URLs:
chrome://settings/clearBrowserData
chrome://settings-frame/clearBrowserData
chrome://history-frame
chrome://history

Step 3: Save

Save before you close the C Panel or move to another Org Unit.

These settings can be applied on a Per Org Unit basis. It is important to have one Org unit that does not have these restrictions in place in case you need to clear the cache or history for a user at some point.

5 Comments

View Recent History Chrome

• Jalapeno
  zzzKry Feb 29, 2016 at 04:49pm

  You should note that this only works if your users sign-in to Google Chrome, which typically only the tech savvy users will do. It'll work on the Chromebooks since it's integrated. But if you are on a Windows Desktop typically users are not signed into Chrome. You can still use Group Policy to do the same thing though.

• Cayenne
  NetTechMike Feb 29, 2016 at 11:24pm

  That is a good point. I was gearing this more toward Chromebook deployments, where you would be required to sign-in.

• Jalapeno
  Dave G. Mar 24, 2016 at 11:34pm

  I’ve added those 4 URLs to the blacklist and tested by trying to navigate directly to those URLs with Chrome (for Windows). As expected I get the notification that these URLs are blocked when trying to navigate to them directly. However, in Chrome if I go to Settings>Show Advanced Settings… and click the Clear browsing data… button under the Privacy section, I am able to see the Clear browsing data popup window and proceed with clearing the browsing data. Is there some other URL I am missing to prevent access to this area?

• Cayenne
  NetTechMike Mar 25, 2016 at 02:50pm

  It appears that the chromium team has 'fixed' my workaround. It is assinine that in the year 2016 I don't have an administrative option in google apps to disable history deletion. This is a feature that existed in the windows/i.e./firefox domain since windows 2000!

• Mace
  bbigford Nov 24, 2018 at 05:28pm

  Nice write up, thanks. This was one really easy to configure thing I like about the G-Apps console.