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I'm getting really tired of Google logging me in to their websites using my full name and secretly changing privacy settings so that it's very difficult to tell what's being published under my name and such all just because I'm logged into my Gmail account. I'm thinking the best solution is to create two user profiles, one that just has Gmail (and other stuff I want associated with my name) and one where I do all my normal browsing.

The problem is, a lot of times there are links in my Gmail or sites like that that I would like to click, but of course they'll end up opening in the Gmail user profile. Is there some kind of chrome extension that I could install that opens links in a new profile? (I think the ideal behavior would be that links that open in a new tab or a new window always open as a designated user-profile, whereas links that open in the same window work fine).

If such a thing doesn't exist, is there a way to open links in a pre-set profile in the existing Chrome scripting language, or would this be something I'd have to make out of the proverbial duct-tape and rubber bands?

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  • did you ever find a solution for this? Jan 22, 2014 at 0:15
  • Unfortunately I did not. I'm starting to think that it might be worthwhile to write a Chrome extension that opens all links in Firefox (or maybe if I can install Chrome twice somehow), and have one dedicated user profile for Gmail. Haven't had much time to look into it.
    – Paul
    Jan 25, 2014 at 3:39
  • I'd find this (your question description, not using Firefox) really useful too. I have 2 google accounts and use one mainly for gmail which I keep open in one chrome window for that profile. Whenever I click a link in an email I'd like it to open in the window for my other profile.
    – Chris R
    Mar 7, 2014 at 15:01

2 Answers 2

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It's been a long time, but Chrome recently added "Open as..." to the context menu when you right-click a link. If you have only one other profile, it'll just offer that; if you have more, there's a submenu from which you can choose the profile that you want to open the link with.

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  • This doesn't really address the question, which was that I wanted all links to open in a different profile by default, preferably with some matching logic to determine which links go to what profiles.
    – Paul
    Mar 23, 2016 at 16:36
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    Ah yeah, you're right, I misread that part. In fact what you're looking for is exactly what I'd like to see as well. At least the "Open as..." option gives a workaround that's a little less annoying than copy & paste. One additional thing I do is to use very different designs for each Chrome profile; that way I at least immediately notice that the link was opened in the wrong profile. Not ideal, I know :(
    – balpha
    Mar 23, 2016 at 16:49
  • I tried configuring uBlock with strict blocking on some of my profiles so it's not actually possible to open the wrong sites. Now I mostly just don't use webapps at all and aggressively manage cookies. One day someone will write an extension that does this, hopefully.
    – Paul
    Mar 23, 2016 at 16:54
  • I imagine that since extensions are isolated per-profile, it may be hard or impossible to write something like this (currently, anyway).
    – balpha
    Mar 23, 2016 at 16:56
  • If you can't find the button: it now only shows when the other profiles window is open.
    – kub1x
    Nov 8, 2017 at 13:59
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Would using the Open link in incognito window context menu item work for you? When you right click on any link inside Chrome, you will get the context menu shown below. Clicking on Open link in incognito window would open the link in a new window in incognito mode which is a privacy mode that would not be logged into gmail, facebook or any other sites unless you eplicity logged into them on the new incognito window. It also would not store any history of visiting the page either, or any cached content from the site.

Incognito

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    No, this would not fix anything. It needs to be the default behavior for things with a new tab/new window target, plus I don't want an incognito window, I just don't want to be logged into that particular Google account, so it has to be a separate user profile (or some kind of extension which manages to separate out the different parts of Google accounts).
    – Paul
    Sep 22, 2013 at 7:18

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