Forum Discussion
How to create separate shortcuts for different profiles on mac?
Thanks for your patience on this Francisv!
There's going to be a little trial and error here so please bear with me.
Can you try the string you've already tried, but leave the quotes off of your profile directory? Like this but with your username:
--profile-directory=Default
Let me know results, this may be the only change you need to make 😃
I'm definitely doing something wrong/ don't know what to do... Do i first create an alias and change it in terminal?
Maybe I just wait until you can implement something in the settings that would make it easy to do for non technical people like me 😕
Something like this : https://superuser.com/questions/997514/chrome-user-specific-desktop-shortcut/1461751
Thanks for your help
- Wow, I've been using OpenIn for a year now and never realized I could have multiple Edge profiles there. 😅 Thanks for sharing!
I've found a new solution.
The first instance use:
open -a "Microsoft Edge" --args --profile-directory=Profile\ 1
To the second one use:open -a "Microsoft Edge" -n --args --profile-directory=Profile\ 2The -n
-n Open a new instance of the application(s) even if one is already running
- So I found a workaround for my situation. Although this workaround doesn't allow for CLI launching, it suffices for my needs. In the Mac app store there's an app called "OpenIn". It's a pretty robust app for customizing how macOS launches browsers, mail clients, and file extensions. It supports Chromium browser profiles, and it DOES work with Edge! So I configured OpenIn for my default and work profiles, and now I can launch whatever Edge browser instance I want. This doesn't give me a shortcut in the mac Dock, but I use a streamdeck and I assigned a button to a work site, and OpenIn automatically launches that site using my work Edge profile. Pretty slick.
- I'm having the same problem. Edge seems to ignore the profile argument. I also have Profile 1 and default, and only one will open no matter the argument I use.
causticnoodles No, no errors the browser opens, but does not change the profile. It is just like clicking the normal edge icon. It starts the profile that has been used last time...
I guess there is not that much to misspell:open -a "Microsoft Edge" --args --profile-directory=DefaultIt seems to ignore the profile argument.
Michael_Schneider No idea why, if you run the command at the console any errors?
There's no avatar over the icon feature I've found for Edge, but it's been a while.
I just tried it again and it's worked, interested if any errors are returned.
- causticnoodles: I tried your steps, but unfortunately it always opens the last profile that I just closed independent what profile I chose. Any idea why?
Isn't there a buildin feature like in Windows that shows the Avatar of the profile over the edge symbol?
Cheers! Michael - Good job! that's great
I got this working with some dirty finagling. Some 'terminal' work involved.
First switched to the Edge data directory in 'terminal', like so
cd ~/Library/Application\ Support/Microsoft\ Edge
Then I searched for my 'profile' directories this dirty way,
find ./ -type f -name Preferences
Which gave me
.//Profile 1/Preferences
.//Default/PreferencesSo I have 'Profile 1' and 'Default'
I tested with
open -a "Microsoft Edge" --args --profile-directory=Profile\ 1
and
open -a "Microsoft Edge" --args --profile-directory=Default
and I got the result I expected, and also I could see which profile was which based on naming without having to 'jq' through some json with the Preferences file.
Finally,
I created an Automator application for each profile to launch it per the included screenshot example, saved it as an application, gave it a custom Icon using 'Get Info' (you can google this' and then dropped it on my menu bar.
Disclaimer - i said it was dirty
- I would definitely help you if i had access to a Mac,
though I did test Edge on my Mac VMware virtual machine few months ago, but have to download new OSX again. Thank you for your help but I think I'm just missing a little knowledge to make this happen.
If the implementation in the UI is going to take some time, perhaps it could be worth it to have someone take 10 minutes to do a little tutorial with 2-3 screenshots.
I would probably make a few people like me pretty happy!
Thanks again
Francisv I'm going to be honest, I don't work with Macs often so I don't know exactly where to find this but the name of the profile has to be the directory name, not the friendly name. So if you go to the Edge Dev directory you should see names something like "Profile 1" "Profile 2" and so on. That's what you'll need to use for that argument!
If you'd rather wait for a more friendly UI or a more complete guide I totally understand, I'll flag to the team that more clarity on how to set this up would be great 😃
