Control Alt Achieve: Managing Multiple Accounts in Google Chrome

This post is Day 9 of my "12 Days of Chrome-mas" where we are learning all about the Google Chrome browser including tips, tricks, lesser known features, and helpful ideas. You can access all of the posts in the series at: bit.ly/chromemas22

It is very common for people to have more than one Google account.

You may have a personal Google account, such as a Gmail address.
But you may also have a Google account provided by your school or your employer.
And you may even have more accounts if you help run a club or organization.

So how do you manage your different accounts in Google Chrome?

There are several options for accessing multiple accounts in Chrome, and we are going to take a look at three of them. The first two options are ok, but the third option is my favorite, and is my personal recommendation.

See below for a tutorial video and written directions for each of these options.

▶️ Tutorial Video (8 minutes)

Watch on YouTube at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7CnjwvAHnhs

🕶️ Option #1 - Log in with an Incognito Window

So the first option for accessing another Google account in Chrome is to use an incognito window. This option is particularly useful if you don't need to log into your second account very often.

Here's how it works:

From your regular Google Chrome profile, click the "3-dots" button up in the top right corner.
From the drop-down menu choose "New incognito window".

This will open up a new window where you are not logged in.
This is like a temporary copy of Chrome where it doesn't know who you are.

In this incognito window, you can now log into your second account.
Simply go to the Gmail or Google Drive website and you will be prompted with a login window.

After you have logged into your second account, you can use it however you need, such as to check your email or access a file.
When done you can simply close out of the incognito window.
The incognito window does not save your account information, so once you close out of the window there will not be any record of that second account on your computer.

Again this option is great if you just need to temporarily log into an account.

🧑‍🤝‍🧑 Option #2 - Add Another Account to your Chrome Profile

The second option for accessing another account is to add that extra account to your Chrome profile. This is not my recommendation for managing multiple accounts, as I think option #3 is much better, but we will go ahead and see how this option works anyway.

So let's say we are already logged into the Chrome web browser with one of our Google accounts.
If we go up to the top right corner we will find an icon for our account.
If we click on the account icon, we will see details on which account we are logged into.
From this same pop-up window, we can also add an additional account.
Simply click "Add another account".

This will open a window where you can sign into your second Google account.
Now when we click on our account icon in the top right corner, we will see that we are signed into two different accounts at the same time, in the same Chrome profile.

Although this option does work, and does allow you to access multiple accounts at once, there are some drawbacks to this option. For example:

It can get a little confusing as to which account you are using at any given time.
This can also create problems when you click on a link to open a shared file, since the link could open up in the account which doesn't have permission to the file.
And finally one of the biggest drawbacks of having both accounts in the same profile is that they have to share the same bookmarks, and extensions, and saved passwords, and browsing history. It is very likely that you don't want that to be the case. Instead you probably want to keep your work bookmarks and extensions and passwords and history, separate from your personal account.

So let's take a look at option #3 which addresses these concerns.

➕ Option #3 - Add Another User Profile to Google Chrome

So for the third and final option to manage multiple accounts, we will take a look at creating separate profiles for each account. This is the method I use to manage all of my accounts, and it is the method I recommend.

Quick note though for Chromebook users - As of the recording of this video, Chromebooks are not able to add multiple profiles yet, although this is a feature that is coming. At the moment for Chromebooks you can use the earlier options, or just sign in and out between users.

So for this method, instead of adding another account to your existing Chrome profile, we will actually be adding an entirely new profile to Chrome for the other account. Here's how that works.

So we will begin by going up to the top right corner of Chrome, all the way up to the smaller user icon at the very top, and give that a click.
Here we will get a drop-down menu for our Chrome profiles.

If you already have other profiles that you have created, you can simply click on them here to jump to that account.
If you need to create a new profile, scroll down to the bottom of the menu and click the "Add" option.
This will open a new window where you can set up your new Chrome profile.

Click the "Sign in" button to begin.
You can now enter the email address for the account you want to add.
And the password for that account.
Then click "Next" to continue.
You will now be asked if you want to turn on sync. You will want to click "Yes, I'm in" so that no matter where you use this account, the bookmarks, passwords, history and more will always be saved and available.

And that's it! Your new Chrome profile is now created.
You can pick a color for this profile if you like, which may help you distinguish between multiple profiles more easily.

Now anytime you want to use a different account, you can access and open as many profiles as you need.

Simply click on the small user icon at the top to open the Chrome profile dropdown menu.
Then click on the account you want to open.

You can have as many accounts open at one time as you want, and each one will be in its own separate copy of Chrome.
And because each account is in its own profile, each account will have its own bookmarks and extensions and history and more.
This is especially helpful for keeping these items separate between your personal account and your work account and any other accounts you have.

🏁 Conclusion

And that's it! It is very likely that you have more than one Google account. If you need to access those accounts frequently, I highly recommend setting up a different Chrome profile for each account. It makes it super easy to access each account, you can have as many accounts open at once as you need, and everything stays separate between each account.

Be sure to check out the other blog posts and videos in my series on Google Chrome to pick up more tips and helpful ideas here bit.ly/chromemas22