---
title: "How to use Profile Porter · Guide for Mac and Windows"
description: "A walkthrough of Profile Porter on Mac and Windows with the app's own screens: download and setup, your first link, the panel, the picker, teaching it your sites, undo and desktop apps."
url: "https://profileporter.com/guide/"
---

Guide

# How to use Profile Porter

From the first launch to everyday use, on a Mac and on Windows. Where the two differ, both are given, Mac first. The pictures are the app's own screens, with made-up profiles.

Every setting is described in the [docs](https://profileporter.com/docs/). If something goes wrong, see [Help](https://profileporter.com/help/).

## 1\. Download and open it

Get it from the [download page](https://profileporter.com/download/). It's €12 once: [buy a license](https://profileporter.com/buy) and the key comes by email. There's no free trial, but there's a full refund within 14 days if it isn't for you.

- **Mac:** open **ProfilePorter.dmg** in Downloads, drag **Profile Porter** onto Applications in its window, and open it from there. It lives in the menu bar, not the Dock: look for its icon at the top right.
- **Windows:** move **ProfilePorter.exe** to a folder of its own, such as %LOCALAPPDATA%\\Programs\\Profile Porter, and open it. If Windows says it protected your PC, click **More info**, then **Run anyway**. It lives in the tray by the clock; if you don't see it there, look under the **^** arrow.

![The Profile Porter icon in the Mac menu bar, between the Wi-Fi and battery icons.](https://profileporter.com/guide/menubar-light.png)

Its icon in the menu bar, between Wi-Fi and the battery.

Click the icon to open the panel; right-click it (Windows: right-click the tray icon) for Settings, pausing and Quit. On the first launch, the setup opens by itself.

## 2\. The setup

The setup is a short window, one step a page. Every step can wait: **Next** moves on, **Skip setup** keeps the defaults, and everything in it is in Settings too. To go through it again later, use **Settings › General › Run setup again**.

![The setup's permissions page on a Mac: Two things before your first link. Found 7 profiles in Chrome, Safari and Firefox. Step 1, let Profile Porter read browser history, with an Open Privacy Settings button. Step 2, send clicked links here, with a Set as default browser button.](https://profileporter.com/guide/setup-light.png)

**Mac.** Two things first: reading your browsers, and the default browser.

![The setup's default browser page on Windows: One thing before your first link. Found 5 profiles in Chrome and Firefox. Step 1, send clicked links here, with a Set as default browser button.](https://profileporter.com/download/windows-setup-default-light.png)

**Windows.** One thing first: the default browser.

### Your license

Paste the key from the email you got after buying and click **Activate**. No key yet? **Buy a License** opens the checkout. Until you enter one, Profile Porter doesn't pick profiles: links open in your browser as they are. It's in **Settings › License** too.

### Let it read your browsers (Mac)

To know which profile you use for each site, Profile Porter reads your browsers' history, cookie names and saved-password site names, on your computer. Nothing is uploaded. macOS keeps those folders behind **Full Disk Access**: click **Open Privacy Settings**, then turn on Profile Porter under **Privacy & Security › Full Disk Access**. Windows needs no permission for this, so its setup skips the step.

### Make it your default browser

Links you click in Slack, Mail, Outlook and other apps go to your default browser. Make that Profile Porter, and it hands each link on to the right profile. Click **Set as default browser**.

- **Mac:** macOS asks whether to use Profile Porter. Click **Use “Profile Porter”**.
- **Windows:** Windows opens **Settings › Apps › Default apps** at Profile Porter. Click **Set default**.

Skipped it? It's in **Settings › Links › Default browser**, on both. On Windows the tray icon's menu has **Make it the default browser…** too.

### Your browsers (Mac)

Two optional permissions that make opening a link smoother. **Control Chrome** lets it bring forward the window that has the link, switch to a tab that's already open, and move a tab later. **Accessibility** lets it bring a profile's open window forward instead of opening another, and open links in the right Safari profile. Click **Allow** on each; macOS asks once. Chrome has to be running for macOS to ask about it.

### Your choices

Then a few choices, already set to what suits most people:

- **Search the pages you visited?** Off until you turn it on. With it, the panel finds a page by a word from its title or address, in whichever profile you visited it.
- **Open the panel:** the shortcut, **⌃⌥Space** (Windows: **Ctrl+Alt+Space**). Click it and press another to change it.
- **Profile order** in the panel, **Colours**, and **Launch at login** (Windows: **Start with Windows**).
- **Remove tracking from links** (on), **Expand short links** (off) and **Switch to an open tab** (off). On a Mac, also **Show your sites in Spotlight**.

The last page, **All set**, lists what's done and what isn't yet. Click **Start**; the panel opens. **Open Settings** goes to Settings instead.

## 3\. Your first link

Click a link in Slack, Mail or any other app. Profile Porter picks the profile where you use that site: the one signed in to it, the one you visit it in most and most recently, the one with its password saved. The link opens there, in that profile's window if it has one open.

A notice tells you where it went and why. On a Mac it shows at the top right, under the menu bar; on Windows, by the tray. It goes away by itself after a few seconds, and stays while your pointer is on it.

![The notice on a Mac: Opened in Personal, from Slack, signed in, 66 recent visits. An Undo button with ⌘Z.](https://profileporter.com/guide/toast-light.png)

The notice, in the profile's colour: which profile, where the link came from, and why.

If it got one wrong, click **Undo** on the notice; see [step 7](https://profileporter.com/guide/#undo). To open links without any of this for a while, click **Pause** in the panel's footer, or right-click the icon and turn routing off. Links then open in your browser as they are.

## 4\. The panel

The panel is how you open a site in a profile yourself. Press **⌃⌥Space** (Windows: **Ctrl+Alt+Space**) from any app, or click the icon in the menu bar or tray.

![The panel on a Mac: your profiles on the left, Personal in Chrome selected, and its top sites on the right: notion.so, spotify.com, google.com, facebook.com and microsoft.com. A search field at the top says Type a service or paste a link.](https://profileporter.com/guide/panel-light.png)

**Mac.** Profiles on the left, the selected one's top sites on the right.

![The panel on Windows: five profiles on the left, Personal selected, and its top sites.](https://profileporter.com/download/windows-home-light.png)

**Windows.** The same panel, by the tray.

- **Open a profile:** pick it on the left with the mouse or **↑** **↓**, then click one of its top sites, or press **Return** (Windows: **Enter**) for a new window of it. A green dot means it has a window open.
- **Search:** type a service, like _github_. Every profile that uses it is listed, best first, with why: signed in, how often you visit, whether you typed it. **↑** **↓** to choose, **Return** (**Enter**) to open, **Esc** to go back. Clicking a profile on the left opens it there too.
- **Paste a link** into the same field to see which profile it would open in, and open it in any of them.
- **A copied link:** copy a link anywhere and press **⌃⌥V** (Windows: **Ctrl+Alt+V**). It opens in the right profile like a clicked one, and asks only when unsure.

![The panel on a Mac after typing github: github.com, matched by domain. Work (Acme) in Chrome is first, signed in, password saved, 44 recent visits, you typed it 23 times. Personal in Chrome is second, then Work container and default-release in Firefox. Profiles with no visits are faded on the left.](https://profileporter.com/guide/search-light.png)

Searching for _github_: every profile that uses it, best first, and why.

**Esc** closes the panel. Its footer has **Settings…** and the **Pause** switch.

## 5\. When it asks

When two profiles are about even for a site, or it has nothing to go on, Profile Porter asks rather than guess. The picker opens with the link at the top, a line on why it's asking, and a card for each profile, best first.

![The picker on a Mac for a github.com link from Slack: A tie, you're signed in to github.com in Work (Acme) and Personal, and use both about as often. Seven numbered profile cards, Work (Acme) highlighted first. At the bottom, a checkbox Always use Work (Acme) for github.com, and the keys: 1 to 9 opens, Shift for a private window, Esc cancels.](https://profileporter.com/guide/picker-light.png)

A tie: signed in to github.com in two profiles, used about as often in both.

- **Press a number**, 1 to 9, to open the link in that card's profile. Or click a card.
- **Arrow keys** move the highlight; **Return** (Windows: **Enter**) opens it.
- **Hold ⇧** (Shift) while you pick to open it in a private window.
- **Esc** cancels: the link doesn't open.

You can ask for the picker yourself: hold **⇧** (Shift) while you click a link in another app, and it asks even when it's sure or a rule decides.

## 6\. Teach it your sites

It gets better as you use it. Each profile you pick by hand counts for that site, and each Undo counts against. For a site that should always go to one profile, make a rule:

- **In the picker:** tick **Always use … for** the site before you pick (Windows: **Alt+A** ticks it). Links to that site then open straight in the profile you pick.
- **In Settings › Sites:** type a site, choose a profile and click **Add Rule**. A rule beats the ranking for every link to that site.
- **By app:** under **Apps** in the same tab, send every link from one app to one profile, like “links from Slack go to Work”. A site's own rule comes first.

![Settings, Sites tab, on a Mac. Two rules: figma.com in Work container, Firefox, and linear.app in Personal, Chrome, each with a remove button, and a row to add a rule. An Apps row to add an app rule. Learned from your choices, 3 sites: weather.com picked once for Work container from Mail; news.ycombinator.com picked once for Client (Northwind) and undone once for Work container; nu.nl picked 3 times for Personal, with a Make Rule button. A Forget All button.](https://profileporter.com/guide/sites-light.png)

Settings › Sites: your rules, app rules, and what it learned from your picks.

**Learned from your choices** shows what your picks taught it, site by site. A site you keep picking the same profile for gets **Make Rule**. The **–** button forgets one site, **Forget All** forgets them all. Further down, **Export…** and **Import…** carry your rules and picks to another Mac or PC.

## 7\. Undo, or move a tab

### Right after a link opens

Click **Undo** on the notice, or press **⌘Z** (Windows: **Ctrl+Z**) while you're still in that browser. The picker asks again, with the profile it chose listed last. Pick the right one: the link opens there, the tab it opened first closes, and that profile counts against the site next time. **Esc** keeps everything as it was.

Where the tab it opened can't be closed for you, the button says **Other Profile** instead (Windows: **Other profile**), and the first tab stays. On a Mac that's any browser other than Chrome and other Chromium browsers. On Windows that's every browser.

### Later: move the tab in front (Mac)

Already reading the page and only now see it's the wrong profile? Press **⌃⌥Z**. The picker asks where the tab in front should go; once you pick, it opens there and the old tab closes. **Esc** keeps it where it is.

It works in Chrome and other Chromium browsers. The first time, macOS asks to let Profile Porter control Chrome: click **Allow**.

Both shortcuts can be changed in **Settings › Links**.

## 8\. Desktop apps

Some links are better in an app than in a tab, like a Zoom meeting link. When a site you use says its app opens a link like that one, and the app is on your computer, the link goes straight to the app. Other pages of the site, like its sign-in page, still open in a browser profile.

When a link goes to an app, the notice says so and offers **Use the browser instead**. All of it is in **Settings › Links › Desktop apps**, with a switch for each app. With **Look up apps for your sites** on, it finds them by reading each site's own list of apps.

## 9\. Everyday tips

Keys on a Mac and on Windows
| To | Mac | Windows |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Open the panel | ⌃⌥Space | Ctrl+Alt+Space |
| Open a copied link | ⌃⌥V | Ctrl+Alt+V |
| Undo while the notice shows | ⌘Z | Ctrl+Z |
| Move the tab in front to another profile | ⌃⌥Z | – |
| Pick a profile in the picker | 1–9 | 1–9 |
| Open it in a private window | ⇧ while picking | Shift while picking |
| Be asked for this link | ⇧ while clicking it | Shift while clicking it |
| Settings, from the panel | ⌘, | Ctrl+, |

- **Pause** in the panel's footer, or turn routing off from the icon's menu, when you want links to open in your browser as they are.
- **Switch to an open tab** (Settings › Links): if the link is already open in that profile, it goes to that tab instead of opening another. Chrome and other Chromium browsers.
- **Search the pages you visited** (Settings › General): find “that doc” or “that show” by a word from its title, whichever profile it was in.
- **Remove tracking from links** is on: parameters like utm\_source are dropped before a link opens. **Expand short links** finds where bit.ly and t.co links go, to pick the profile for that site.
- **Spotlight** (Mac): turn on **Show your sites in Spotlight** in Settings › Privacy, then type a site or a profile in Spotlight to open it in the right profile.
- **A new profile** shows up by itself within a minute of the browser saving it.
- **A shortcut clashes** with another app? Settings says so next to it. Pick another in Settings › General (the panel) or Settings › Links (the others).

## Where to go next

- [Docs](https://profileporter.com/docs/): every feature and setting, on a Mac and on Windows.
- [Help](https://profileporter.com/help/): links that skip Profile Porter, a link in the wrong profile, Full Disk Access, shortcuts and licenses.
- How-tos: [open links in a specific Chrome profile](https://profileporter.com/how-to/open-links-in-chrome-profile/), [Slack links in the wrong profile](https://profileporter.com/how-to/slack-links-wrong-chrome-profile/), [a different browser for each website](https://profileporter.com/how-to/default-browser-per-website-mac/).
- [Privacy](https://profileporter.com/privacy/): what it reads on your computer, and the few things that go online.
- Still stuck? Email [support@profileporter.com](mailto:support@profileporter.com), or use **Settings › License › Contact support**.