Start Chrome with a URL with options incognito mode and maximized tab IN BATCH

Question

This command line opens an incognito tab and connects to the URL in environment variable %url%:

start chrome --incognito %url%

This maximizes the tab and connects to the %url%.

start chrome %url% /MAX

But as soon as I try to combine them, like this,

start chrome --incognito %url% /MAX

The /MAX option does not work.

How can I properly combine their functions?

Answer 1

How can I properly combine their functions?

You may be using /max in the wrong position. /max is an option to start, not chrome. You also appear to be leaving off the (in most cases) necessary leading set of double-quotes ("") for start. So your start command should look like:

ex. incognito_chrome.bat

set url=plus.net

start "" /max chrome --incognito %url%

Also be aware that if chrome isn't really chrome.exe (e.g. it's chrome.bat), this could be eating your /max option (in this example, /max would be used on the command window spawned by chrome.bat, not Chrome [chrome.exe] itself). If this is the case, you should use the full path to chrome.exe rather than just chrome.

References

• start (ss64 documentation)

Answer 2

The /MAX is in the wrong position, but it's not strictly necessary because Chrome has a command line option to start maximized.

You can use the command line argument directly:

set url=superuser.com
start chrome --start-maximized --incognito %url%

Answer 3

You can achieve what you want by involving PowerShell in your script. PowerShell provides more control over the process start parameters.

Here is a working example of a batch file you can use.

StartChrome.bat

SET URL=plus.net

powershell -c "start-process chrome.exe -WindowStyle Maximized -ArgumentList ""%URL% --incognito"""

Answer 4

Try this PowerShell code using the Windows API:

$url = "URL"
chrome.exe --incognito "$url"
$max = 3
$winapi_code = @'
[DllImport("user32.dll")]
public static extern bool ShowWindow(IntPtr hWnd, int nCmdShow);
'@
Add-Type -MemberDefinition $winapi_code -Name NativeMethods -Namespace Win32
$hWnd = (Get-Process -Name chrome).MainWindowHandle | Where-Object {$_ -ne 0}
[Win32.NativeMethods]::ShowWindow($hWnd, $max) | Out-Null