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This guide is for administrators deploying Draftable Clean settings through Active Directory Group Policy. For cloud-managed devices, see Configuring preferences with Microsoft Intune (Draftable Clean). For an overview of both methods, see Configuring preferences for your organization.

Administrative templates

Draftable Clean provides administrative templates (ADMX/ADML files) that list all available settings, making it easy to discover and configure them directly from the Group Policy editor without needing to know individual registry paths.

Obtaining the templates

The templates are found in the GroupPolicy folder under the Draftable Clean installation path. The current folder is a shortcut that always points to the latest installed version.
%LocalAppData%\DraftableClean\current\GroupPolicy
If the current shortcut is not available, look for the folder with the highest version number under %LocalAppData%\DraftableClean\ — the latest templates will be inside its GroupPolicy subfolder.
v26.6.0 (June 2026) ships updated ADMX/ADML templates. Reinstall templates from a v26.6.0 or later installation before configuring new policies — especially Outlook add-in and must-clean settings introduced in this release.

Installing the templates

Copy the Draftable Clean .admx file to:
C:\Windows\PolicyDefinitions
Then copy the .adml language file from:
%LocalAppData%\DraftableClean\current\GroupPolicy\en-US
to:
C:\Windows\PolicyDefinitions\en-US
Alternatively, copy the templates to your organization’s Central Store network path.

Editing policies

Once installed, Draftable Clean policies appear in the Group Policy editor under:
  • Computer Configuration > Administrative Templates > Draftable Clean
  • User Configuration > Administrative Templates > Draftable Clean
Some settings may only appear under one scope if they are not supported in the other.

Available policy settings

Computer Configuration

SettingDescription
Product keySet the product key for automatic license activation across user machines
Setup automatic updatesControl whether updates are applied automatically (non-MSI installer). If disabled, updates must be applied manually.
Send usage statisticsWhen enabled, anonymised usage data is sent to Draftable for diagnostics
Submission of exception reportsControl whether automatic crash and error reports are sent. Options: Always send, Never send
Enforced cleaning rules (must-clean)Require specific metadata types to always be removed across every cleaning profile — including new custom profiles. See Enforcing must-clean metadata types below.
Accept terms and conditions on behalf of usersAutomatically accept T&Cs on first launch, so users are not prompted
Launch Draftable automatically when Windows startsIf enabled, Draftable Clean launches on startup unless the user opts out
Users can share error logsControls whether the error dialog includes a button to email logs (enabled by default)
Custom error messageSet a custom error message shown when something goes wrong during cleaning
Customer contact support email bodyCustomize the email body used when users send logs to support

User Configuration

SettingDescription
Configure admin cleaning profilesSet administrator-managed cleaning profiles that users cannot edit
Configure domain rulesDefine domain-to-profile mappings for the Outlook add-in (the DomainRules policy)
Outlook add-in: default profile when no recipientsSet (and optionally lock) the profile used when an email has no recipients
Outlook add-in: send protection — not finished cleaningSet (and optionally lock) the Allow / Prompt / Block behaviour for attachments that have not finished cleaning
Outlook add-in: send protection — unsupported fileSet (and optionally lock) the behaviour for unsupported attachment types
Outlook add-in: send protection — tracked changes detectedSet (and optionally lock) the behaviour when tracked changes or comments are detected
Outlook add-in: attachment summary formatSet (and optionally lock) the default List or Table attachment summary format
Outlook add-in: allow profile overrideControl whether users can override the cleaning profile per attachment
Configure custom email subjectSet the default email subject line when sharing cleaned files via the desktop application’s Email button (not the Outlook add-in)
Configure custom email bodySet the default email body text when sharing cleaned files via the desktop application’s Email button (not the Outlook add-in)
Configure email attachment summary formatSet the default format (List or Table) for attachment summaries when sharing cleaned files via the desktop application’s Email button (not the Outlook add-in)
Configure submission of error reportsControl whether automatic error reports are sent
Configure submission of usage statisticsControl whether anonymised usage data is sent to Draftable
Breaking change in v26.6.0 — Outlook add-in policy format. Outlook add-in settings are now exposed as individual Group Policy fields (default profile, each send-protection behaviour, attachment summary format, and profile-override). Previously these were configured through a single combined JSON value. A new ADMX template surfaces the DomainRules and AddInSettings policies explicitly.If your organization scripted or deployed the previous single JSON value, you must migrate to the new individual fields. Reinstall the v26.6.0 administrative templates (see Obtaining the templates) and reconfigure the add-in policies using the individual settings above.
For a complete and up-to-date list, refer to the administrative templates installed on your system — they are the definitive source of truth for all configurable settings.

Locking Outlook add-in defaults

Each Outlook add-in policy field can be set as a fixed value that end users cannot override from the desktop application’s Settings > Add-In panel. This lets administrators lock the default profile and send-protection behaviours to organisation standards while leaving other settings user-editable. Where a field is left unset by policy, the user’s own setting applies. See Priority of settings for the full precedence order.

v26.6.0 administrator updates

Draftable Clean v26.6.0 (June 2026) adds several enterprise controls relevant to Group Policy administrators:
  • Enforce must-clean metadata types across all profiles — require specific metadata types to always be removed, regardless of which cleaning profile is active (including profiles created after the policy is applied). See Enforcing must-clean metadata types.
  • Outlook add-in lockdown — lock the default profile, send-protection behaviours, attachment summary format, and per-attachment profile override using individual policy fields.
  • Updated ADMX templatesDomainRules and AddInSettings policies are surfaced explicitly in the template set.
  • MSI prerequisite change — the machine-wide MSI no longer requires .NET 10 Desktop Runtime as a separate prerequisite check, which may simplify deployment alongside policy rollout.
See the v26.6.0 release notes for the full list of changes.

Enforcing must-clean metadata types across all profiles

The Enforced cleaning rules policy lets administrators require that specific metadata types are always removed when files are cleaned — regardless of which cleaning profile is active. Enforcement is applied across all profiles: the built-in profiles, administrator-managed profiles, and any custom profiles users create later. Enforced rules are read-only at runtime and cannot be overridden by a profile’s own settings. This gives legal and IT teams a guaranteed baseline — for example, ensuring author, comments, and tracked-change metadata are stripped from every outbound document no matter how a profile is configured.
Enforced cleaning rules are defined as a JSON value in Group Policy. The set of available metadata types matches the Supported Metadata Types reference.

Configuring admin cleaning profiles

The Configure admin cleaning profiles setting is a User Configuration policy that allows administrators to define cleaning profiles centrally. These profiles are deployed to users and cannot be edited by them. The policy value is a JSON string representing the profile collection. Draftable Clean includes a built-in admin profile editor to simplify creating and updating this JSON — this workflow is designed for Group Policy deployment.
The admin profile editor is intended for use with Group Policy. Launch Draftable Clean with the --admin-profile-editor flag, edit profiles visually, then copy the exported JSON into the Group Policy setting. If you deploy settings via Microsoft Intune, you can use the editor to generate the JSON value, but you must deploy it through your Intune configuration profile — see Configuring preferences with Microsoft Intune.
Launch Draftable Clean with the --admin-profile-editor flag:
DraftableClean.exe --admin-profile-editor
This opens an in-memory profile editor where you can create, modify, and export a profile collection as the policy value. Workflow for updating admin profiles:
  1. Copy the existing profile collection JSON string from Group Policy
  2. Open Draftable Clean with the --admin-profile-editor flag
  3. Import the JSON string into the admin profile editor
  4. Make the required changes using the visual editor
  5. Copy the updated JSON string back to the clipboard
  6. Paste the updated JSON string into the Group Policy setting to apply the changes

Need help?

If you need assistance configuring Draftable Clean with Group Policy, contact the Draftable team at support@draftable.com.