I all the time set up Chrome Beta on all my Android telephones; this is why

It’s been greater than 13 years since Chrome first launched on Android. Essentially, the app hasn’t modified a lot in all these years: I sort a URL and the web page hundreds up. In all these years, although, Chrome hasn’t caught up with the remainder of Google’s apps in a single key characteristic: a number of account help.

A lot of the official Google apps let me rapidly swap between totally different Google accounts, they usually have achieved that for a few years now, since 2010-2011, to be exact. Chrome, nonetheless, doesn’t permit that for some cause, and it’s the bane of my existence. To repair that, I all the time set up Chrome Beta (and Chrome Dev) on my Android telephones. Right here’s why and the way I make it work for me.

I’m in all probability not the one particular person to have a number of Google accounts. Many individuals have at the very least two — private and work/college — and probably extra for different functions. For me, there’s a private one, a piece one for Android Authorityand a joint one with my husband, which we use for all of the shared payments, reservations, paperwork, and purchases.

For the reason that starting, I’ve established a transparent separation between these three accounts. I don’t hyperlink them collectively inside the identical Chrome profile on my desktop laptop; as a substitute, I take advantage of separate Chrome profiles that permit me to maintain church and state non-public. That manner, my work looking doesn’t have an effect on my private suggestions, and my private knowledge doesn’t leak into work or my shared joint account.

Bookmarks, looking historical past, cookies, caches, default addresses and fee strategies, saved logins and passwords — all of those are separate between every account and profile as a result of they do serve utterly totally different functions.

On my Android telephone, although, Chrome solely permits me to log into one account and sync all that knowledge over. If I wish to swap to a different account, I can’t merely swipe on my avatar and have it roll between private, work, and joint. No, I’ve to signal out after which signal again in with the opposite account, do what I would like, then bear in mind to signal again out and into the primary one once more. I did that for all of at some point again in 2012 and instantly regretted it. Then it occurred to me: There’s additionally Chrome Beta, can I check in with a special account?

And certain sufficient, I used to be capable of maintain my private account linked to the principle Chrome app on my telephone, after which signal into my work account on Chrome Beta. I lastly had a setup that was nearly nearly as good as what I had on my laptop! I may maintain my looking and private knowledge separate and management what every profile sees and is aware of about me. Good.

The app does have “beta” in its identify, and that ought to imply bugs, at the very least on paper. However in my 10+ years of utilizing each browsers on the similar time, I don’t even recall one occasion the place Chrome Beta failed me. I’m certain it’s not precisely as steady as the principle launch, and bugs happen, however what I’m making an attempt to say is that it’s usually ok to not be a “beta” expertise in on a regular basis life.

The one hiccup is in dealing with hyperlinks coming in from different apps. Say I’m checking a piece e-mail and I click on a hyperlink, it’ll open in my default browser, which is Chrome steady, i.e., on my private account. So I’ve discovered to repeat the hyperlink’s URL, manually open Chrome Beta, and paste it. It’s annoying, however not as annoying as sacrificing my privateness by holding all my knowledge in a single browser.

In 2017, once I received married and created a joint account with my husband, I demoted my work account to Chrome’s much less steady Chrome Dev since I used to be specializing in a greater work-life stability and used my telephone much less for work. My new joint Google account with my husband grew to become my mainstay Chrome Beta account. Dev has had a couple of bugs in all these years, however as soon as once more, nothing that I might name a dealbreaker. When you have much more Google accounts, you may go experimental and assign your least-used one to Chrome Canary. At this level, do count on some extra frequent points and bugs.

Sadly, the listing of standalone Chrome apps stops there, so when you’ve got 5 or extra Google accounts, you received’t be capable of log in with all of them. However 4 is an effective begin. After all, it will be higher if Google may add a number of profile help in Chrome so we don’t should resort to those workarounds, and people with greater than 4 accounts can nonetheless maintain their looking knowledge separate. I had hope for that in 2012-2013, however in 2025, I believe the hope has wilted and died.

After I talked about this multiple-Chrome trick in my article in regards to the Google apps I all the time set up on my Pixel, reader Darth Vader stated that he makes use of this similar trick for an additional function: to separate his VPN looking from his common native looking utilizing a VPN app that enables tunneling per software. I discovered this fascinating and a very good manner of utilizing these separate Chrome apps to attain totally different looking wants, even below the identical Google account. You possibly can, for instance, have one common occasion of Chrome and one other in Beta, the place you don’t permit the browser any permissions, disable third-party cookies, and choose totally different settings or flags. That sounds very helpful, too.