A method, system and program product for group policy backup management in a network having a plurality of domains including components and modules for steps of retrieving a list of group policy objects for a domain, generating a configuration initialization file including a domains section identifying a plurality of domains that are to be backed up and a setup section specifying a plurality of values that control the backup of each policy object in each domain, determining a digital signature for each policy object on a list of policies for the domain, comparing the digital signature for each policy object with a corresponding previous digital signature for each policy, determining if a current digital signature for each policy object matches the corresponding previous digital signature for a policy, and backing up a policy object having a current digital signature that does not match the corresponding previous digital signature.