Best Way To Deploy Chrome with mcxToProfile

mattmghost
New Contributor II

I want to be able to auto-deploy Chrome to new computers that get enrolled in our system. I've been deploying Chrome via a package I made with Composer, but I'm getting issues where it's deploying an older version. So after some searching around, I found a better way to deploy Chrome with this: https://support.google.com/chrome/a/answer/9020580?hl=en&ref_topic=7650028. I'm stuck at the mcxToProfile step, as even when I enter the command, nothing happens. How do I get this to work? Keep in mind, I usually try to avoid the Command Line. Tried to use ProfileCreator for a GUI method, but I'm not sure if what I'm doing is right or not compared to the seemingly dead simple mcxToProfile Terminal process. Thanks!

2 REPLIES 2

talkingmoose
Moderator
Moderator

Because you have Jamf, you'll likely want to follow slightly different instructions.

First, you'll download and deploy the Chrome application to your Macs. A Configuration Profile can't deploy software. You'll need to use Composer or another tool to package Chrome and make it deployable.

ProfileCreator and mcxToProfile are tools for different needs.

If you need to manage Chrome settings like the homepage or managed bookmarks, you'll want to use ProfileCreator. If you're having problems with the tool, I suggest joining the #profilecreator channel on MacAdmins Slack and asking for help with the tool.

You'd use the mcxToProfile tool only if you had a com.google.Chrome.plist file that you've already edited. The plist has dozens and dozens of settings and can be a little unwieldy, which is why ProfileCreator is more useful.

Both tools create a .mobileconfig file (a Configuration Profile in file format) that you can upload to Jamf pro.

bentoms
Release Candidate Programs Tester

You can just create a com.google.Chrome.plist with the needed settings & upload the plist as a Custom Settings payload for a profile.