How to change Chrome profile on a Mac, in every sense

To change Chrome profile on a Mac, click the round profile picture at the top right of any Chrome window and pick another name from the list. Chrome opens that profile in a new window. That is the whole answer for switching, and it takes two clicks. The reason people keep searching is that "change" covers four other jobs as well: choosing which profile Chrome opens with, renaming or recolouring a profile so it stops being confused with another, replacing the Google account inside a profile, and opening a particular profile straight from the Dock or the Terminal. Each job has different steps, and doing the wrong one is how a morning gets spent in the wrong account. This guide takes them one at a time, using the menu names Chrome shows today (checked on 18 October 2026 against Google's own help pages).

The two clicks that switch profiles

Google's help page for profiles describes switching in three steps: open Chrome, select Profile at the top right, and choose the profile to switch to (Manage Chrome with multiple profiles). On a Mac, the Profile button is the circle with a photo or an initial, just right of the address bar.

What happens to the window already open

Switching never converts the window in front. Chrome opens a second window that belongs to the other profile, and the first window keeps its own tabs, history and signed-in sites. This explains two complaints that look like bugs. Tabs do not follow the switch, because each tab belongs to the profile that opened it. And windows pile up during the day, because every switch adds one.

Moving a tab across

There is no menu that moves an open tab into another profile. Chrome's own help on tabs is explicit about this: "Move tab to another window" only works when both windows are signed in to the same profile (Manage tabs in Chrome). To carry a page across profiles, copy the address with Command L then Command C, switch, and paste it into the other window. For pages used every day, bookmark them inside the destination profile once, since bookmarks are stored per profile and never shared.

Telling windows apart

With two windows open, the only difference may be a small picture in the corner. The fix for that is covered further down, under renaming and recolouring, and it is the change that saves the most time for the least effort.

Changing the profile Chrome opens at startup

Chrome reopens whichever profile was used last. That is why a Mac restarted overnight can start the day in a personal profile when the first task is work email. Chrome has no setting called "default profile". What it has is a picker that asks every time.

The steps on the help page are: select Profile at the top right, choose Manage Chrome profiles under "Other Chrome profiles", then tick Show on startup at the bottom of the window that appears. From then on, launching Chrome shows a grid of profiles instead of guessing. It costs one click each morning.

When one profile should always win

If the day always begins in the same profile, a picker is an extra click with no decision behind it. The alternative is to launch that profile directly, which the next section explains. A common setup is a Dock shortcut for the work profile and the normal Chrome icon for everything else.

What Reddit threads usually get wrong

Many forum answers suggest deleting the "Default" folder or renaming folders so that a preferred profile becomes the first one. That works on paper and loses data in practice, because the folder holds cookies, saved passwords that are not synced, and extension settings. The picker or a direct launch reaches the same result without touching any files.

Opening one profile directly from the Dock or Terminal

Chrome accepts a flag that names the profile folder to open. From Terminal on a Mac:

open -na "Google Chrome" --args --profile-directory="Profile 1"

Two details decide whether this works. The -n flag asks macOS for a new instance. Without it, a Chrome that is already running simply comes to the front and ignores the rest of the line. And the value must be the folder name, not the name shown in the profile menu.

Finding the folder name

The Chromium project documents where profile data lives on macOS: the user data directory is ~/Library/Application Support/Google/Chrome, and each profile is a subdirectory inside it, often called Default (Chromium Docs: User Data Directory). The same page gives the quickest check. Open chrome://version in the window in question and read the Profile Path line. The last part of that path is the folder name to use.

Profiles created later are named Profile 1, Profile 2 and so on. Renaming a profile to "Work" changes only the label in the menu. The folder keeps its number.

The typo trap

A folder name that does not exist is not treated as an error. Chrome creates a new, empty profile with that name and opens it, which looks exactly like being signed out of everything. If a shortcut suddenly opens a blank Chrome, check the spelling and the capital P before anything else.

Turning the command into a Dock item

Save the line in a small Automator application (choose Application, add a Run Shell Script action, paste the command) and drag the result to the Dock. Give it the profile's colour as its icon and it becomes a one-click way into that profile.

Renaming and recolouring a profile

Most wrong-window mistakes come from two profiles that look alike, not from missing settings. Google's steps for editing another profile are: Profile, Manage Chrome profiles, then More and Edit on the profile card. For the current profile, Profile and then Customize profile is faster. Changes save automatically.

Three choices make the result readable at a glance:

• Short labels. "Client A" reads better than a full email address, which the menu truncates. Two addresses at the same domain look identical once cut short.
• Colours far apart. Blue and navy look different side by side in the picker and identical at the edge of vision. Pick one warm and one cool colour.
• A real photo or a distinct avatar when both profiles belong to the same person, because the default initial is the same letter in both.

The colour also tints the window frame and the new tab page, so a correctly coloured profile is recognisable before the page has even loaded.

Changing the Google account inside a profile

This is the one change that can lose data. A profile signed in as one address does not become a profile for another address by signing in a second time. Bookmarks, history, extensions and site permissions belong to the profile, not to the account.

The clean sequence

1. Export anything worth keeping. The bookmark manager (Command Option B) has an Export bookmarks item under its three-dot menu.
2. Sign out. Google's sign-in help gives the path: Profile at the top right, then Sign out of Chrome (Sign in to Chrome).
3. If the old account's synced data should also be removed from Google's servers, the same page points to chrome.google.com/data and its Delete data button.
4. Sign in with the new address from the same Profile button.

Often the better move

When a work address is being replaced by another work address, a new profile is usually less work. Converting the old one carries every extension, saved password and site permission into a context that may not be entitled to them. Create the new profile, move the few bookmarks that matter, then delete the old one.

Deleting a profile

Google's help warns that removing a profile erases its bookmarks, history, passwords and other settings from the computer. Synced data comes back if the same account is signed in again. Anything that was never synced is gone.

What stays the same whichever profile is in front

Some behaviour sits above the profile. Knowing which is which prevents a lot of fruitless settings hunting.

Item	Separate per profile	Note
Bookmarks, history, saved passwords	Yes	Each profile has its own store
Extensions	Yes	Installed into one profile at a time
Cookies and signed-in sites	Yes	This is what keeps accounts apart
Links clicked in Mail, Slack or Messages	No	macOS hands the link to Chrome, Chrome picks a window
Dock icon and Command Tab entry	No	One Chrome icon for every profile
Chrome version and updates	No	One application on disk

The fourth row causes the most daily friction. Apple's help confirms the default browser is chosen at the system level, under System Settings, Desktop and Dock, "Default web browser" (Change the default web browser on Mac). macOS chooses the application, not the profile, and Chrome then opens the link in the Chrome window used most recently.

A habit that controls where links land

Before clicking a work link in a chat app, click once on a work profile window. Every link after that lands there until another Chrome window is used. It is not elegant, but it is faster than opening the wrong document and pasting the address across.

Incognito is not a lighter profile

Some people open an Incognito window instead of switching, to sign in to a second account for a few minutes. Google's help describes what that window really is: a separate session in which Chrome does not sign in automatically, and whose cookies and site data are removed when the last Incognito window closes (Browse in Incognito mode). That makes it fine for a one-off check and poor for daily work, because every session starts signed out and two-step verification has to be passed again. If the same second account is needed every day, a proper profile saves that repeated sign-in.

When switching profiles is the wrong tool

Profiles were designed to keep people apart on a shared computer, which is how Google's help introduces them. They also work for keeping one person's work and personal life apart. They start to strain when the split is by service rather than by person: three clients, each with its own Gmail, Slack and Notion. That needs a profile per client, a window per profile, and the same link-routing habit in each.

A different model is an app aggregation browser, where each web app sits in its own pane with its own cookie store, so two Gmail accounts can stay signed in side by side in one window. On macOS, one such browser (made by the company that publishes this site) has a free plan with 1 workspace and up to 3 apps, offers a 14-day trial with no card, and puts multiple accounts of one service behind the paid plan. Its workspaces page explains how the containers are separated, and the current terms are on the pricing page.

What to change first

Turn on Show on startup, then give every profile a short name and a colour nothing like its neighbours. Those two changes take five minutes and remove most wrong-window mistakes. If switching still happens dozens of times a day after that, the problem is the window model, which is what SpaceDeck is built around.