The short answer
If the accounts you juggle live in websites, use Chrome profiles. They’re free, built in and very good at it.
MacDualSpace is for the desktop apps that have no profiles of their own: a second Claude, Codex, Slack or Cursor signed in to another account, open next to the first.
What Chrome profiles do well
- Each profile has its own bookmarks, history, saved passwords, extensions, cookies and settings, and can sync with its own Google account.
- Each profile opens in its own windows, so you can keep two profiles side by side.
- Every window shows the profile’s name or picture in the toolbar, so you know which one you’re in.
- Nothing to install and nothing to pay.
For two Google accounts, work and personal web apps, or separate extensions for separate jobs, profiles are the right tool.
Where profiles stop
- They only separate Chrome. The Claude, Slack or Cursor desktop apps keep one set of data on your Mac, whichever Chrome profile you happen to be using.
- The web version isn’t the app. You can often open a web app in a second profile instead, but you give up the desktop app itself, and some tools, like a desktop code editor, have no web version to fall back on.
- One icon for every profile. All Chrome profiles share Chrome’s single icon in the Dock.
What MacDualSpace does differently
MacDualSpace clones the app itself. Each copy, which it calls a Space, gets its own data folder for cookies, cache, settings and sessions, so you can sign in to a different account in each one and keep them all open. It works the same way for desktop apps and for browsers: you can clone Chrome too.
- Each copy has its own Dock icon, with the Space’s color ring and letter badge.
- Notifications say which Space they came from, in that Space’s color.
- Jump between copies with ⌥⌘1, ⌥⌘2 and so on, or from the menu bar.
- Your original app and its data are never changed.
Chrome profiles and MacDualSpace, side by side
| Chrome profiles | MacDualSpace | |
|---|---|---|
| What it separates | Chrome’s cookies, history, passwords, extensions and settings | An app’s whole data folder: cookies, cache, settings and sessions |
| Works with | Chrome | Desktop apps such as Claude, Codex, Slack and Cursor, and browsers like Chrome |
| Side by side | Yes, in separate windows | Yes, each copy is its own app |
| In the Dock | One Chrome icon | One icon per copy, with a color ring and letter badge |
| Switching | The profile menu in the toolbar | The Dock, the menu bar or ⌥⌘1, ⌥⌘2… |
| Price | Free, built in | Planned: two Spaces free, Pro $29 once |
| Available | Now | Not released yet |
Which one should you use?
Use Chrome profiles when…
- The accounts you need are all websites, such as two Google accounts.
- You want separate bookmarks, history and extensions for work and personal browsing.
- You’d rather not install anything.
Use MacDualSpace when…
- You need a second account in a desktop app, like a personal and a Team account in Claude.
- You want each account as its own app in the Dock, with notifications labeled by Space.
- You want the accounts open side by side without switching anything.
Or use both
Nothing stops you from keeping Chrome profiles for the web and cloning only the desktop apps that need a second account. If you’re not sure which free options you already have, start with how to run two instances of an app on Mac.