Reference
What each part of Profile Porter does, where it is, and its keys on a Mac and on Windows. Settings means Profile Porter's own settings (its icon in the menu bar, or the tray on Windows, then Settings…). Something not working? See Help.
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The panel finds a profile for you: type a service, pick a profile, open a copied link. It opens from any app, over full-screen apps too, and a click outside puts it away. Clicking the menu bar icon (the tray icon on Windows) opens it as well.
The left side lists every profile from every browser, with how many have a window open. A profile with a window open says open. On the home screen, a click or ↑ ↓ selects a profile and shows its top sites; the arrow that shows on hover opens a new window of it. While you search or pick, a click opens that profile.
With nothing typed, the panel shows the selected profile's five most visited sites. Click one to open it in that profile.
Type a service, like “spotify” or “github”. The panel lists the profiles where you use it, best first, each with why (“Password saved · 44 recent visits”). ↩ (Enter on Windows) opens the top one, ↑ ↓ choose another, and Esc goes back, then closes. Other sites that also match are listed under Also matches.
Paste a whole link (starting with https://) and the panel ranks your profiles for it, as it would for a clicked link. Open it in the top one, or click another profile. A full address the panel doesn't know, like example.com, opens in whichever profile you click.
Type a word from a page's title or address and the panel also finds pages you visited, in any profile or browser, and your bookmarks. They come after the matching sites. Off until you turn it on: setup asks.
With a link on the clipboard, the panel's top card offers to open it in the profile it would go to. Select another profile on the left to send it there, press ↩ to open it, or click Choose… for the full picker. With no link copied, the card shows the shortcut instead.
Turns Profile Porter off for a while without quitting it. Links open in your browser as they are, with no profile picked (in the browser that was your default before, else the one you used last), until you turn it on again, even after a restart. The panel still opens what you pick in it.
Every minute Profile Porter checks whether you browsed, and if so reads your browsers again; at least every 30 minutes it looks for new browsers and profiles. A brand-new profile shows up once you browse in it. Refresh Profiles in the ••• menu reads everything now.
A banner at the top says when something needs you: macOS blocked reading a profile (its tile then says guess · blocked), a browser stopped saving history, or a link didn't open, with a way to try again or pick another profile. Close it with its ×.
How the panel lists your profiles. Smart: By Time of Day, the default, puts the ones you use at this hour first, learned from your history: work profiles on weekday mornings, personal ones in the evening. The others are Most Used, Last Used, Open Profiles First and Alphabetical.
A profile you switch off leaves the panel and the picker. A rule can still send links there. Shown when you have more than one profile.
Automatic follows your system: Differentiate Without Colour in System Settings › Accessibility on a Mac, a contrast theme on Windows. Full Colour gives each profile its own colour. Colour-Blind Friendly uses blue, orange and yellow instead of red against green, each with an icon. Fewer Colours makes profiles grey and lets icons and labels tell states apart.
Links you click in Slack, Mail, Outlook and other apps reach Profile Porter only when it's your default browser. Then each one goes to the right profile. On a Mac, click Set as Default and confirm. On Windows, Set as default… opens Settings › Apps › Default apps at Profile Porter: click Set default there.
From what's already in your browsers: which profiles are signed in to the site (from cookie names), where you saved a password for it (the site's name only), how often and how recently you visit it there, the browser's own score for sites you use, and which profiles have a window open. Your earlier picks and Undos count too, and so does the app the link came from. When the top two are about even, it asks instead of guessing.
When Profile Porter isn't sure, a picker opens where you are, even over full-screen apps, with a card for each profile, ranked, and why. It says where the link came from (“from Slack”). Links that arrive while it's up wait their turn.
Tick Always use Work for github.com at the bottom of the picker, then pick a profile: links to that site open there from now on without asking. The rule is listed in Settings › Sites.
Hold ⇧ (Shift) while you click a link in another app and the picker asks where it goes, even when Profile Porter is sure or a rule decides. On by default.
Hold Shift as you open a profile, in the panel or the picker, and the link opens in a private window of it. Nothing is learned from that pick, and Always use makes no rule. Chrome, Edge, Brave, other Chromium browsers and Firefox; Safari has no private window to ask for.
When a link from another app opens without asking, a notice names the profile, where the link came from and why, with Undo, or Other Profile where it can't close the tab. It's at the top right on a Mac and by the tray on Windows. It stays while the pointer is on it; click it to dismiss it. Off, links still go to the same profiles, without the notice.
The notice's Undo closes the tab the link opened in and asks again, with that profile last. Where the tab can't be closed, the button is Other Profile and opens the picker. Each Undo counts against that profile for that site.
Sends the browser tab in front to the profile you pick. The picker lists the profile it's in last, and the tab closes only once you pick, so Esc keeps it. It works in Chrome and other Chromium browsers once you allow Control Chrome.
Copy a link anywhere and press the shortcut: it goes where a clicked link would, with the notice and Undo, and asks only when unsure.
The app you clicked a link in counts: if your work Slack's links always go to Work, that's where the next one goes. The notice shows the app. A link from a command line counts as coming from the terminal it runs in.
A tool's sign-in link (gh auth login, aws sso login) opens in the profile signed in to that provider. If none is, it asks rather than guess, unless you picked a profile for those sign-ins before or were on the site in the last 15 minutes.
A sign-in link from an email opens in the profile you were just on that site in (within 15 minutes), so the session lands where you asked for it.
Gmail, Docs and Drive links open as the Google account that belongs to the profile, not the first account signed in there.
Each profile you pick by hand counts for that site, and for the app the link came from. Each Undo counts against. A choice counts half after two months. Settings › Sites lists what it learned.
Chrome, Edge, Brave, Arc and other Chromium browsers; Firefox and other Firefox-based browsers, with their profiles and containers; and Safari 17 or later on a Mac, with its profiles. macOS 14 or later, or Windows 10 or 11.
Browsers keep their history and cookies in folders macOS protects, so Profile Porter needs Full Disk Access to read them. Without it, picks for those profiles are guesses. Windows doesn't ask for this. Chrome on Windows keeps its cookies to itself while it runs, so the sites you're signed in to are read while it's closed, and kept until the next time.
Lets Profile Porter bring the window with the link forward and read the tab to move. Chrome and other Chromium browsers ask once; Firefox needs nothing. macOS can only ask about a browser that's running. If you said no, Ask Again, or turn it on under Profile Porter in Privacy & Security › Automation.
Picking a profile that already has a window open brings that window to the front instead of opening another. On a Mac, macOS lists this under Accessibility, so allow it once. Windows does it without asking.
If the link is already open in that profile, Profile Porter goes to its tab instead of opening another. Off by default. Chrome and other Chromium browsers only, once you allow Control Chrome.
Safari can't be told which profile to open a link in, so Profile Porter picks File › New Window › that profile's window for you. macOS lists this under Accessibility. Without it, links open in the Safari profile you used last. Shown when Safari has more than one profile.
Each container shows up as a profile of its own, once the Open external links in a container add-on is in Firefox, since that's how a link can open in one.
Profile Porter starts with your computer and waits in the menu bar or tray, doing next to nothing while you aren't browsing, so links always have somewhere to go. On Windows it's Start with Windows; if Task Manager turned it off under Startup apps, turn it on there.
A rule sends every link to a site straight to one profile, skipping the ranking. Type a site (like github.com), choose a profile and click Add Rule, or tick Always use this profile in the picker. The list shows when each was added; the − button removes one. A rule whose profile is gone says so.
Every link clicked in one app opens in one profile, like “links from Slack go to Work”. Choose an app (the ones running, the ones links came from before, or on a Mac any app through Other…), choose a profile and click Add App Rule. A site's own rule comes first.
For each site: the profiles you picked or undid and how many times, which apps the links came from, and when. The − button forgets one site, Forget All forgets everything, and Make Rule turns a steady habit into a rule. Kept on your computer.
Export… saves one file with your site rules, app rules and learned picks; Import… reads it, on another Mac or a Windows PC. Profiles are matched by browser and name.
A company can lock settings and add site rules for everyone. A locked setting is greyed out with “Set by your organization”. Its site rules beat your own and the ranking; a profile can be named by its email, an email domain like @acme.com, its name or its key. On a Mac this is a configuration profile; on Windows, the registry under Software\Policies\ProfilePorter. Windows lists those rules in Settings › Sites as “Your organization”.
When a site says its app opens a link, like a Zoom call or a Figma file, the link goes to that app on your computer instead of a browser tab. Other pages of the site, like its sign-in page, still open in a browser profile. There's no list to keep up: apps are found from each site's own list of apps, and from apps that say which sites' links they take. If the app doesn't take a link, the picker asks.
Each app found is listed with the links it opens and a switch. An app its site vouches for is on until you turn it off; others are on once you say so. An app your browser already opens from a site without asking is listed too.
The first time a link goes to an app you didn't turn on yourself, the notice says so, with Use the browser instead.
Reads each site's own list of apps, and a page or two of yours there the way a link preview does, to learn the app's links. No cookies, at most once a week per site. On by default.
Drops tracking parameters like utm_source before a link opens, on your computer, with ClearURLs' rules. While it's on, the app downloads their latest rules once a week. On by default.
Finds where links like bit.ly and t.co go, to pick the profile for that site. It asks the short-link service, and only for known short-link sites; if there's no answer within a second, the link goes as it is. Off by default.
Profile Porter opens only http and https links. If an app hands it anything else, nothing opens and the panel says why.
| What | Mac | Windows |
|---|---|---|
| Open the panel | ⌃⌥Space | Ctrl+Alt+Space |
| Open a copied link | ⌃⌥V | Ctrl+Alt+V |
| Move the tab in front to another profile | ⌃⌥Z | – |
| Undo the last link, while its notice shows | ⌘Z | Ctrl+Z |
| Choose the profile for a link you click | Hold ⇧ | Hold Shift |
| Your sites in Spotlight | ⌘Space | – |
| What | Mac | Windows |
|---|---|---|
| Move between profiles or results | ↑ ↓ | ↑ ↓ |
| Open the selected one | ↩ | Enter |
| Open it in a private window | ⇧↩ | Shift+Enter |
| Back to the home screen, then close | Esc | Esc |
| Open a card in the picker | 1–9 | 1–9 |
| Move between cards in the picker | Arrow keys | Arrow keys |
| Tick “Always use…” in the picker | – | Alt+A |
| Settings | ⌘, | Ctrl+, |
| Refresh profiles | ⌘R | Ctrl+R |
| Quit | ⌘Q | ••• › Quit Profile Porter |
Next tab: ⌃Tab or ⌘⇧] on a Mac, Ctrl+Tab on Windows. Previous tab: ⌃⇧Tab or ⌘⇧[, or Ctrl+Shift+Tab. On Windows, Tab moves between controls and Esc closes Settings.
Click the keys next to it in Settings and press the new shortcut. It needs ⌘, ⌃ or ⌥ on a Mac, or Ctrl, Alt or Win on Windows; Esc cancels. If another app or the system already uses it, Settings says so next to it. On a Mac with more than one keyboard language, macOS itself uses ⌃⌥Space to switch between them.
Open Settings from the panel's footer, or from the menu bar or tray icon's menu. A Windows PC has the same tabs; rows only a Mac has are marked.
On first launch, a short setup goes one step a page: on a Mac, Full Disk Access and the default browser, then the browsers' own permissions; on Windows, the default browser. Then Search pages you visited, and a few choices already set to what suits most people. Every step can wait, and Skip setup keeps the defaults. The last page says what's done and where to find the rest.
From your browsers' own files: history (pages, their titles, how often), bookmarks (only while page search is on), the browser's score for sites you use, cookie names and dates (to tell signed in from signed out) and the site names of saved passwords. Never passwords, cookie values or page content. None of it leaves your computer. More on the privacy page.
Only the license checks, updates, public lists (web domains, browsers, tracking rules, short-link sites), looking up apps for your sites (you can turn it off), and, if you turn it on, where a short link goes.
While your screen is shared or recorded, the panel, the picker and the notices don't appear in it (on Windows, Settings neither). On by default. Windows needs version 2004 or later.
Press ⌘Space and type a site or a profile's name: the sites you use most in each profile are there, each marked with the profile it opens in. Press ↩ and it opens there. The list stays in your Mac's Spotlight; turning this off removes it. On by default.
If Profile Porter quits unexpectedly, it writes what went wrong to ~/Library/Logs/Profile Porter/crash.log (on Windows, %LOCALAPPDATA%\ProfilePorter\crash.log), with no links or history in it. Attach it when you email support.
How to remove Profile Porter and everything it keeps, on a Mac or a Windows PC, is on the data deletion page.
Profile Porter is €12 once, with no free trial; if it isn't for you, you get a full refund within 14 days. Until you enter a license, it's off: links open in your browser without picking a profile and the panel is greyed out with Buy a License and Enter License Key.
Buy a License opens the checkout: €12 once, for 1.x. The key comes by email. Paste it into License key and click Activate.
A license works on up to 3 computers, Mac or Windows. To move it, click Deactivate next to Move to another Mac (on Windows, Move to another PC), then enter the key on the new one.
The key is checked online about once a week; offline it keeps working for a month. After a month unchecked, it says License not checked, with Check Now. If the license was turned off (refunded, say), it says License off and why.
Email Support writes to support@profileporter.com, for questions, a link that went to the wrong profile, or a license problem.
Profile Porter checks for updates by itself, downloaded from profileporter.com and signed. Check for Updates… checks now, and the row shows your version. On Windows, a downloaded update waits for Restart to Update (also in the tray icon's menu); your settings stay.
Launchers and scripts can send Profile Porter a link. They only do what a click in the panel does: they can't change a setting or a rule, and nothing is learned from them.
| Link | What it does |
|---|---|
profileporter://open?url=… | Opens the link in the profile you use that site in, like a clicked link |
…&profile=Work | Opens it in that profile |
…&profile=Work&private=1 | In a private window of that profile (not Safari) |
profileporter://open?profile=Work | A window of that profile |
profileporter://search?q=roadmap | The panel, searching your sites and pages |
profileporter://panel | The panel |
A profile can be named by its key, its name (“Work”), its label (“Chrome · Work”), “chrome/work” or its email. A name that fits no profile, or two, shows the picker. Percent-encode the link. On a Mac, open "profileporter://…"; on Windows, start "" "profileporter://…".
The Shortcuts app has two actions: Open URL in Profile (a link, an optional profile, an optional private window) and Find the Profile for a Site, which gives the profile Profile Porter would pick and opens nothing.
Three commands: Open in Profile lists your profiles (↩ opens the typed or copied link there, or a window; ⇧↩ a private window), Open Link in the Right Profile, and Search Sites and Pages.
pp and some words searches your sites and pages, ppo and a link opens it in the right profile, and ppp lists your profiles: ↩ opens a window, and with a link on the clipboard ⌘↩ opens it in that profile and ⇧↩ in a private window.
In PowerToys Run (Alt+Space), pp lists your profiles (Enter opens a window, or the copied link in it; Shift+Enter a private window), pp github.com/x opens a link in the right profile or the one you pick, and pp roadmap shows the panel searching your sites and pages.
With Profile Porter pinned to the taskbar or in Start, right-click it to list your profiles, most used first; one opens that profile's window, or brings it forward.
--profiles prints every profile as JSON (its key is what profile= takes), and --quit quits the running app. On a Mac, run them as "/Applications/Profile Porter.app/Contents/MacOS/ProfilePorter"; on Windows, ProfilePorter.exe. The Mac app also shows what it would do, without opening anything, from its engine alone (your rules and earlier picks aren't in it):
--browsers: every browser and profile found.--find spotify: the profiles for a service, ranked, with why, and matching pages.--route https://github.com/x: the ranking for a link.--clean <link>: the link without its tracking.--expand <short link>: where a short link goes.--order smart: the panel's profile order, with scores.--accuracy 30: how often the pick would have been right on your last 30 days.Opening Profile Porter again while it runs (from Finder, or open -a "Profile Porter") shows the panel.
Something not working as it says here? Help has the fixes, or email support@profileporter.com.