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I use Chrome as my main browser. I also spend a lot of time on a particular webapp that my company uses. I'd like to keep those two things separate.

I can run the webapp in a separate window - but I'd like to go further than that. I'd like to have it be identified by a different task in the Win 7 taskbar; ideally a different icon; and ideally a different title in Process Monitor. How can I run a second, independent instance of Chrome, with a different title and icon, that won't merge with my main Chrome browser.

Nicolas Raoul
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SRobertJames
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8 Answers8

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Settings->Add Person, choose icon, give it a name, make sure 'Create desktop shortcut for this user' is checked. Once you open this shortcut, it'll show up on your taskbar as a separate icon.

Read this for more details: http://www.pcworld.com/article/2089364/how-to-create-and-manage-multiple-user-profiles-in-chrome.html

stacksharki
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  • It's a pity that there is absolutely no access restriction in their implementation, which means it's useless for multiple users with private data :( – Nick Bedford Oct 13 '16 at 00:27
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    I don't think this answers "I'd like to have it be identified by a different task in the Win 7 taskbar; ideally a different icon; and ideally a different title in Process Monitor" – aubreypwd Dec 13 '16 at 20:49
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    @AubreyPortwood did you try it? Because I did, and it does create a separate icon and taskbar group (it overlays the icon you select when creating the person). – john16384 Nov 04 '17 at 18:36
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    Also possible via command line parameters, see related question: https://superuser.com/questions/377186/how-do-i-start-chrome-using-a-specified-user-profile – chrki Nov 28 '17 at 19:28
  • Great solution! No need to fiddle with installing two instances of Chrome! Multi-user solution is built-in! – ytk Apr 27 '18 at 15:54
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    Can't find "Add Person" option in settings :( – Eugene Mala Jan 21 '21 at 23:45
  • I believe you can access adding people by clicking on your avatar (left of the three dots menu) and then choosing "Add" at the bottom. – Emmanuel Mar 22 '21 at 04:32
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    These aren't really "independent": they'll still get merged into the same process. My use-case was I wanted to launch a particular online game from Steam, but even a separate `--profile-directory` wasn't enough to make the second instance's process not *exit immediately* if the first instance was already open – JamesTheAwesomeDude Jul 05 '21 at 19:36
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I've done that before with a portable version of Chrome.

You could even use Google Chrome Canary (if you're ok with beta versions) as the 2nd one so that it has a different icon, etc.

LWC
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Alex
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Google Chrome builtin Profiles are a horrible way to have things separated because they have many bugs not fixed in a long time as (https://bugs.chromium.org/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=130656).

The best way to separate things is to create two or more different shortcuts to the Google Chrome Application with different data directories:

  1. "C:\Program Files (x86)\Google\Chrome\Application\chrome.exe" --user-data-dir="c:\user1"
  2. "C:\Program Files (x86)\Google\Chrome\Application\chrome.exe" --user-data-dir="c:\user2"
  3. ...
  4. https://medium.com/linked-helper/how-to-setup-separate-chrome-instance-for-windows-9ac9921b81b3
user
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3

screenshot

You can use the Beta or Dev version of chrome, this is better because you get different icons and can still sync to your account.

I found the details from this article.

Dawoodjee
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Open your web app in a tab, then [Chrome > ⋮ > More tools... > Create shortcut].

This will open it in a Chrome popup window, which will separate it from the main instance, and provide it with the same favicon as provided by the web app domain. In Win7+ this can be pinned to the taskbar for convenience. Tested to work as of Chrome v72.0.3626.121.

Ark565
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You can run a separate instance of Chrome on Windows by creating a shortcut on your desktop with a different user-data directory.

 1. Right click on the Chrome short on your desktop and click "Create shortcut"
 2. Right click on the new shortcut "Google Chrome (2)" and click "Properties"
 3. Look for the text box called Target, you'll see the path to the chrome executable
"C:\Program Files (x86)\Google\Chrome\Application\chrome.exe"
 4. Add --user-data-dir="c:\your_dir_name" to the end of the executable
"C:\Program Files (x86)\Google\Chrome\Application\chrome.exe" --user-data-dir="c:\chrome2"

Chrome will automatically create the new user-data directory when you use this shortcut.

PDP
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You can also use the mac app Coherence, or any other website to app. https://www.bzgwebs.com/coherence5

Renaud
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    Not necessarily spam, but not a good answer, since it is OS-specific, and not related to the OP's stated OS. – xenoid Oct 22 '17 at 19:29
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As of September 2021 OSX (MacOS) Big Sur 11.5.2 the only functional command to open a new Chrome instance as different user is:

 open -n -a "Google Chrome" --args --profile-directory="Profile 2"

The correct profile name can be determined by looking at Profile Path in chrome://version/

albertcz
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