Signing in through the browser ends with a claude:// link, and Windows sends every one of those to your original account. The first time you add an account, the switcher offers to handle those links and pass each sign-in to the account that asked for it. Turn it on or off from the tray (Send sign-ins to the right account), or with -RouteSignIns and -Revert.

A sign-in goes to the first of these that applies: the account you launched while it was signed out, the only open account that is signed out, the open account you used last, and otherwise your original one. Other claude:// links, such as a link to a Claude Code session, open in your original account unless you choose otherwise: -OpenLinksIn Work sends them all to Work, and -OpenLink <url> -Account Work opens a single link there.

[!NOTE] On the Store build of Claude, Windows keeps claude:// links for Claude until you choose otherwise. Turning routing on opens Settings at the right page: set CLAUDE to Claude Profile Router. -Status shows whether that step is still to do.

When Claude installs an update while idle, Windows closes every copy of it and the app brings back only your original account. Logoff and restart do the same. For an account that has to stay up (Remote Control, scheduled tasks, long Claude Code sessions), tick Keep running in Edit..., or run -KeepRunning Work.

A per-user scheduled task then looks every two minutes and at logon, and reopens a kept account only when its own log ends in a forced close; one you closed yourself stays closed. It waits out an update in progress, reopens minimized, never takes the foreground, and never reopens the same account twice within ten minutes. Each action is written to %LOCALAPPDATA%\ClaudeProfiles\.switcher\watchdog.log.

Shortcuts puts a Claude - <name> shortcut on the desktop and in the Start menu, so you can search for an account or pin it. Each extra account's window also gets its own taskbar button with its badge instead of piling onto Claude's, and a pinned shortcut shares that button. Your original account keeps Claude's own button.

Select an account, click Transfer chats, tick the chats and pick where they go. The chat stays in the original account too, and both continue the same history, so finish in one before picking it up in the other. The target account needs to have opened the Code tab once.

Set them in Edit...: variables one per line as NAME=value, flags as you would type them. If the account is open, the switcher offers to restart it so they take effect. They are stored in %LOCALAPPDATA%\ClaudeProfiles\settings.json, keyed by the account's folder name:

"ProfileEnv":  { "Work": { "MCP_PEER_NAME": "work" } },
"ProfileArgs": { "Work": "--lang=en-GB", "Personal": ["--lang", "fr-FR"] }

A copy that is already open keeps what it started with. Your original account on the Store build starts through Windows and takes neither.

Names can be an account's label or its folder name.

• Two builds of Claude, both detected: the Store (MSIX) build, whose original data lives in %LOCALAPPDATA%\Packages\Claude_<id>\LocalCache\Roaming\Claude and which the switcher starts through the shell so it keeps auto-update and claude:// links; and the installer build, with its data in %APPDATA%\Claude.
• Extra accounts live in %LOCALAPPDATA%\ClaudeProfile-<name>, directly under %LOCALAPPDATA%, because Cowork's local VM service only finds its disk image there. Older versions used %LOCALAPPDATA%\ClaudeProfiles\<name>; those move once, and a link left at the old place keeps Code chats that remember the old path working.
• Renaming changes a label only. A folder is an account's permanent id, because Electron stores absolute paths inside its data.
• Running detection counts only the desktop app's own process, not the Claude Code CLI, which is also called claude.exe.
• Sign-in routing is off until you turn it on. It then takes over the claude:// handler in HKCU, after saving Claude's own to .switcher\claude-handler-backup.json, which -Revert restores. Links are validated before use and never logged, because a sign-in link carries a one-time code.
• Updates fetch a 300-byte checksum file from this repository's releases once a day, and the script only when it changed. A new script is installed only when it matches the published checksum, and only after you agree. "UpdateCheck": false in settings.json turns the daily check off. See SECURITY.md for everything the switcher writes or reads.

• Running detection reads each process's arguments: an account is the Claude process started with its folder, and Electron's helper processes (--type=...) are not counted.
• Sign-in routing works the same way everywhere: the account started while signed out, else the only open account that is signed out (read from its config.json, key presence and length only), else the one whose window was used last, else your original account. On macOS the link is handed over as an Apple Event to that account's process; on Linux, by starting that account's Claude with the link, which Electron's single-instance lock passes to the copy already open. Claude making itself the handler again as it starts is undone at once.
• Updates look at where GitHub's "latest release" points, once a day, and install the new app or program only when it matches the release's SHA256SUMS.txt (and on macOS, passes codesign --verify and carries the same bundle id).

Yes. Each account runs in its own copy of the Claude desktop app with its own login, so you can have a work and a personal account (or several) open and signed in at once.

Yes. Each account has its own Code tab and sessions. You can also copy Code chats from one account to another, and on Windows and macOS keep accounts that run long Code sessions open through Claude's updates.

No. Your original account keeps using Claude's own data, which the switcher never touches. New accounts get folders of their own.

No. It only starts the official app with a different data folder. You sign in inside Claude itself, and the switcher never reads tokens or passwords.

Each open account is a full copy of the app, so roughly one Claude's worth of memory per account. A folder grows to a few hundred MB, mostly caches. On Windows, an account that runs Cowork tasks locally also starts its own Linux VM (about 4 GB of memory, 10 GB of disk).

This is for the desktop app. The claude CLI already supports several accounts through its CLAUDE_CONFIG_DIR environment variable.

Point at it once and it is remembered: -ClaudePath C:\path\to\Claude.exe on Windows, --claude-path /path/to/Claude.app on macOS, --claude-path /path/to/claude-desktop on Linux. On Linux the switcher looks for the claude-desktop and claude-desktop-unofficial commands.

It needs GTK 3 for Python: sudo apt install python3-gi python3-gi-cairo gir1.2-gtk-3.0. Everything else works without it from the command line.

The shortcuts run conhost --headless powershell -ExecutionPolicy Bypass -File ..., which some products (Huorong has been reported) take for a trojan pattern. Remake them in a plainer shape:

.\ClaudeSwitcher.ps1 -ShortcutStyle hidden    # no conhost; a console may flicker
.\ClaudeSwitcher.ps1 -ShortcutStyle plain     # also without -ExecutionPolicy Bypass

plain needs Set-ExecutionPolicy -Scope CurrentUser RemoteSigned once. -ShortcutStyle headless goes back to the default.

The app is not notarized by Apple. Right-click it in Applications and choose Open once, or run xattr -dr com.apple.quarantine "/Applications/Claude Profile Switcher.app".

Use -ExecutionPolicy Bypass as in the install line, and Get-ChildItem -Recurse | Unblock-File if you downloaded the ZIP. Anything fatal is shown in a message box and written to %LOCALAPPDATA%\ClaudeProfiles\switcher-error.log. For a bug report, paste the output of .\ClaudeSwitcher.ps1 -Doctor (or the tray's Copy diagnostics): versions, accounts and recent log lines, with your user name replaced.

Windows: the tray's Uninstall..., or -Uninstall. That removes shortcuts, the watchdog task, sign-in routing and the installed copy, and keeps your accounts and settings unless you add -RemoveProfiles. macOS: run --uninstall (launch agents and sign-in routing), quit it from the menu bar and move the app to the Bin. Linux: claude-switcher --uninstall, then sudo apt remove claude-profile-switcher for the .deb. On both, accounts stay unless you add --remove-profiles.