Multiple Profile is a feature which associates each window with a profile and lets you sync some of the settings with a Google account of your choice. This way you can work with several Google Accounts simultaneously in separate windows.
Google Chrome has had a support for multiple profiles since a long time, but you had to use a command-line flag (–user-data-dir=”c:\path\to\the\profile”) to associate a profile with a folder where the browser saved its state.
The Multiple Profile feature was a part of Chrome OS which has now been added to the Canary and Chromium Builds of Chrome. This feature will be enabled for the regular Chrome version in coming days but if you want to start using it, you can use it via Chrome Canary build.
How To Enable And Use Chrome Multiple Profiles:
The multiple profiles feature will allow the user to associate a profile with a specific set of browser windows, rather than with an entire running instance of Chrome. Allowing different windows to run as different Chrome identities means that a user can have different open windows associated with different Google accounts, and correspondingly different sets of preferences, apps, bookmarks, and so on — all those elements which are bound to a specific user’s identity.
Having multiple profiles in the Chrome browser also makes it easy to browse with separate identities without having to log in as separate users at the operating system level. Further details about Chrome Profiles can be read at the Chrome Design Document.
You must enable this feature from the Chrome Labs.
Type in “about:flags” in the address bar and press enter. Scroll down and enable the Multiple profile feature and click on Relaunch at bottom of this page to enable this feature.
Once you relaunch the browser, go to the Options window and click the Personal Stuff link to access this feature.
To get started you would need to click “Enable these features…” which will let you sign in with your Google account.
Clicking on “Create new profile” button will open a new Chrome window that would let you sign in with a different Google Account.
Difference between Chrome Sync and Multiple Profiles:
Sync provides the basic mechanism for binding a Google account to the state of a Chrome browser, but provides no special consideration for different profiles: the model provides that a browser is either synced to a profile or not synced, and syncing adds data, instead of modifying it. For example, if a user syncs to profile A and then logs out and syncs to profile B, the browser will contain bookmarks from both profiles.
In the multiple profiles model, the idea of syncing will need to adapt to the understanding that several distinct users (or, at least, identities) can be associated with a single browser instance.
Disconnecting The Profile:
Disconnecting from an attached account will not result in any changes to the user’s immediate browsing experience; the only change will be that alterations in the profile will not be connected to the profile state stored off-client.
You can also customize which data should be synched across browsers and choose to delete any personal data from the Google Dashboard.
This feature is still under development and more options will be added as this is developed further.
If you are an early adopter and like to try out new features earlier than others, give it a try.
