is it possible to have multiple sessions of chrome?

Is it possible to have multiple sessions of chrome open at once? Not websites but the actually application itself?

is there a hack or trick to doing this? anyone know?

Before you ask WHY!? Im trying to have my google application shortcuts to run in thier own tab on the taskbar. I hate that slacker radio, gmail and all other application shortcuts run under the 1st chrome window that is launched.

picture 1:

with me, i can double-click on the chrome shortcut in start menu to open another instance.

or middle-click pinned taskbar icon.

or you can just drag a tab onto your desktop to make a new chrome window.

is this what you meant?

picture 2:

or right-click taskbar >> properties >> taskbar buttons >> never combine - but this will effect all your taskbar entries, not just chrome

No thats not what I mean. I have chrome shortcut on the taskbar. I cant launch two sessions of the program. If I click on chrome again once its already open it just take me to the open chrome sessions.


I want to be able to open chrome than open chrome again in effect running two seperate copies of chrome at the same time. Not a session of one chrome.

If you drag one of the tabs outside the window, it creates a new window.

You can also grab a single tab window and drag it into an existing window.

In that case Chrome merges the two sessions to one.


Also in win7, if chrome is already opened, right clicking on chrome button in the taskbar should give you the option to open other instance.

good luck

sorry, it seems that i don't understand what you were after.

isn't picture 1 what you wanted? middle clicking your taskbar button will give you multiple instances of chrome? you can close one instance down without affecting the others.

picture 2 shows separate taskbar buttons.

You can use two different sessions.
One using the Chrome Incognito Window (Private Browsing) and the other using regular Chrome Window.

So if you open a new Window (it would not work with a new tab in current window), using Ctrl-Shift-N (instead of Ctrl-N),
or open through the menu [Spanner Icon]->New Incognito Window, you can instantiate another completely separate session. All incognito windows would share one session, and all non-incognito windows would share another.

I am also looking for a way for multiple sessions in Chrome (I need more than two).

You can create an Incognito window from the task bar on chrome taskbar icon.

I found an extension that allows you to open new Google window in a complete different session (though this extension is not searchable from chrome web store).

Musatcha.com / New Chrome Session - Google Chrome Extension

This works but I am not sure whether it is safe to use it.