Chrome --user-data-dir not working properly?

So i wanted to pin different chrome instances to my taskbar. I've found this cmd line argument and I tried executing it:

"C:\Program Files (x86)\Google\Chrome\Application\chrome.exe" --user-data-dir="C:\Users\username\AppData\Local\Google\Chrome\User Data"

And It opened chrome with the default profile. I have another local profile for developing with different extensions etc. Its path is ..\Profile 1

"C:\Program Files (x86)\Google\Chrome\Application\chrome.exe" --user-data-dir="C:\Users\username\AppData\Local\Google\Chrome\User Data\Profile 1"

Weird thing, it opened a somewhat guest profile, with no ability to switch to other profiles. What's wrong?

4 Answers

The User Data folder is the profile.

Copy the existing C:\Users\username\AppData\Local\Google\Chrome\User Data folder to something like C:\Users\username\ChromeProfiles\User Data (anywhere else on C:\ might cause Admin access issues).

Now make a new (or copy existing) taskbar shortcut and point its Target (including quotations) to "C:\Program Files (x86)\Google\Chrome\Application\chrome.exe" --user-data-dir="C:\Users\username\ChromeProfiles\User Data

I use this trick to move my profile to a RAM drive on bootup (obviously w/ different path structure) and it works like a charm.

Instead of using --user-data-dir run Chrome with this parameter:

chrome.exe --profile-directory="Profile 1"

As another answer explained, your User Data folder in its entirety needs to be copied.

Hence you cannot just reference "Profile 1" within a User Data Folder but have to reference an entire User Data folder.

What you can do is 1. Copy your current User Data folder (with said guest profile) to a NEW DIRECTORY 2. Point chrome shortcut to the NEW DIRECTORY using the --user-data-dir parameter 3. After launch, notice that the profile is exactly as the original. Now modify this chrome instance, removing profiles and things you don't need.

If you are attempting to run this from IIS and the application pool is not set to load a profile, you'll need to set both the --profile-directory and --user-data-dir, such as:

chrome.exe --profile-directory="C:\temp\profile" --user-data-dir="C:\temp\profile\userdata"