Multiple User Profiles in Google Chrome for Mac
Creating multiple Google Chrome profiles is fairly easy on a PC, there's even a program for doing all the legwork for you. Not so for the Mac. I could not for the life of me find a decent tutorial on the web for creating multiple user profiles for Google Chrome on OSX, so hopefully this will help. We'll basically be writing a small shell script, which will act like an application for initializing a new Chrome profile and acting like a Windows shortcut thereafter. Here are the steps:
First, open Script Editor (Command+Space > Script Editor)
Now, lets say we want to add a new chrome profile for somebody named Susan. Paste the following code into the Script Editor, replace the name "susan" with the profile name you want to use.
do shell script "/Applications/Google\\ Chrome.app/Contents/MacOS/Google\\ Chrome --user-data-dir=/Users/$USER/Library/Application\\ Support/Google/susan > /dev/null 2>&1 &"
Next, save the Script (File > Save As) in your Application directory. Name it something like "Google Chrome Susan" (replacing Susan with your profile name). Also, make sure to choose "Application" from the File Format drop-down list.
Now you should see a new .app in your Applications folder with the name you gave to the shell script. You can run this application and it should initialize a new profile. Everything should be working now.
If you want to make the new Script/App look a little prettier, you can copy the normal chrome icon to the new .app. To do this first select the regular Chrome Application and select Command+I (for Get Info).
See the icon in the top left hand corner of the Info window. Click the icon and select Command+C (for Copy). Now go to the new Script/App and Get Info. Now select the icon in the top left and select Command+V (for Paste). The icon should change.
Now just close both Info windows, and the app should have a new pretty Chrome icon.
After waiting for Spotlight to index the new app you should be able to search for it without a hitch!
The most helpful contributing source to this post was a Chromium support page: http://www.chromium.org/user-experience/user-data-directory. I also learned about changing application icons from a post on this wiki page: http://wiki.unto.net/google-chrome-profiles-on-osx. Hope this helps.
This looks cool. Nice work on the tutorial
I have followed your directions and created the app. But when I click on it, the default profile was overwritten and I have lost all the original settings. Then, whether I click the original chrome or this new chrome, it is opening the same application.
I have checked the folders created under Application Support/Google. The new profile folder (in my case, siraj) is a sibling of Chrome. Should this be under Chrome as a sibling of Default or does it not matter?
I would appreciate your help.
I just checked my folders and I have siblings for my second profile under both "Google" and "Chrome" so I'm not sure. The script is right though. It's working on my Macbook 3,1 (10.5.8). Have you double checked the script code? It should be the following exactly:
Thanks
Awesome! thanks very much, just learnt a heap more about osx after years trapped in doze.
very nice!
I have tried this script over and over. i also have deleted all of chrome and reinstalled. still nothing. when i double click the chromepersonal.app nothing happens. it blinks and goes away. Any thoughts?
Thank you
Have you tried opening the script while the original chrome application is open. Otherwise the only thing I can think of is that the script may not have been copied or saved correctly.
Hi,
Thanks for the great detailed tutorial! 2. things to note:
a) Script editor is now AppleScript Editor in Snow Leopard.
and
b) a slight tweek on this script if you want a different icon in your doc and to differentiate when [Cmd+Tab'ing] thru your apps,
is to create a duplicate of the browser in your applications folder.
do shell script "/Applications/MyBrowser.app/Contents/MacOS/Google\\ Chrome --user-data-dir=/Users/$USER/Library/Application\\ Support/Google/mybrowser > /dev/null 2>&1 &"P.S. I know this creates a Duplicate of the browser app which takes up an extra 188mb of hard drive space. But using Chrome's sync to synchronise bookmarks and settings between the browsers means you can take everything with you if you like or start completely fresh. :-)
If anyone knows how to create a new instance of the browser with a new icon/app name without duplicating the browser in the applications folder, please let me know! Thanks
This is GREAT- Worked PERFECTLY!
This allows me to use multiple copies of Chrome at the same time! Thanks!
- Chris
This has been so useful - my old browser profile was corrupt and creating a new one seems to have solved the issue. But if a browser profile is corrupt does anyone know how to remove it?
Works a treat!
Is there any way to have an icon in the dock that opens the browser in the other profile? I dragged the app described here into the dock but unfortunately when clicked, it opens a new instance of chrome and also puts that in the dock meaning i have 3 chrome icons (One for mine, one for my gf and then the application described here icon)
Thanks
Hi, I also have the same problem: I follow the instructions but when I double click my newly created Chrome Account, it blinks shortly and then dissapears. Nothing happens. Does anyone know how to solve this problem? I also tried leaving the existing Chrome account open, didn't help. Thanks - Thomas
I think the script also needs this flag: " --enable-udd-profiles". Per http://www.google.com/support/accounts/bin/answer.py?answer=179236
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