Awhile back I was using the same computer for work and home, I ran into the same issue with having to use my Google accounts to sign in to other services. So I set up a second profile in Google Chrome, and then set up icons for each profile so I could quickly access them at the click of an icon.
I'm on Mac OS, but the same should be possible on Windows as well.
To do this, you'll need to know the name of the directory your profile is in. On Mac OS 10.9 this would be the name of the profile folder found in:
~/Library/Application Support/Google/Chrome
(On Windows 7 it would be %USERPROFILE%\AppData\Local\Google\Chrome\User Data
)
Generally the first profile is named "Default" so the command to start an instance with that profile would be:
$ open -n /Applications/Google\ Chrome.app/ --args --profile-directory=Default
Your second profile is usually in directory named something like "Profile 1" so the command should look something like:
$ open -n /Applications/Google\ Chrome.app/ --args --profile-directory=Profile\ 1
(You can also write it as --profile-directory="Profile 1"
if you prefer)
As explained at https://mathiasbynens.be/notes/shell-script-mac-apps we can set up app icons on Mac OS by creating an executable bash script somewhere in your $PATH
, I usually create it in /usr/local/bin
:
#!/bin/bash
APPNAME=${2:-$(basename "$1" ".sh")}
DIR="$APPNAME.app/Contents/MacOS"
if [ -a "$APPNAME.app" ]; then
echo "$PWD/$APPNAME.app already exists :("
exit 1
fi
mkdir -p "$DIR"
cp "$1" "$DIR/$APPNAME"
chmod +x "$DIR/$APPNAME"
echo "$PWD/$APPNAME.app"
Then you create an simple shell script for each of your profiles, that contain each of the above commands to start the browser instances. For instance, create a file called chrome_personal.sh
:
#!/bin/sh
open -n /Applications/Google\ Chrome.app/ --args --profile-directory=Default
Now use appify to create an icon from the shell script:
$ appify chrome_personal.sh "Personal"
Finally, to set the icon just go to your real Google Chrome icon in /Applications and right-click and choose "Get Info". Then click the icon and use Command-C to copy it. Now right-click on your newly created icon and choose "Get Info". Click on it's icon and use Command-V to paste the Google Chrome icon into it.
Then repeat the process for any other profiles you want icons for.
You should be able to set something like this up on Windows, too. You'd just have to create the custom icon on your Desktop or in your Taskbar and use the same above options like --args --profile-directory=Default
after the command in each icon, and the process for setting the icon will be different. (I don't have a Windows system to test but it should be just right click the icon and select "Properties", I believe).