Add a Profile in Microsoft Edge Chromium

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How to Add a Profile in Microsoft Edge Chromium

The Chromium-based Microsoft Edge browser supports multiple profiles. Each profile comes with its individual browsing history, favorites, options, and extensions. Profiles are useful when you want to differentiate and isolate your activities, like social networks, banking, blogging, etc.

Microsoft Edge is now a Chromium-based browser with a number of exclusive features like Read Aloud and services tied to Microsoft instead of Google. The browser has already received a few updates, with support for ARM64 devices in Edge Stable 80. Also, Microsoft Edge is still supporting a number of aging Windows versions, including Windows 7, which has recently reached its end of support. Check out Windows Versions Supported by Microsoft Edge Chromium and Edge Chromium latest roadmap. Finally, interested users can download MSI installers for deployment and customization.

Profiles in Microsoft Edge

Similarly to user accounts in Windows 10, Microsoft Edge supports profiles on a browser level. This allows you to have more than one default profile, and even pick one to be used for opening links from running apps.

You can use a Microsoft Account to create a new profile in Microsoft Edge, or you can create a local profile instead. When you sign in to a profile with a Microsoft account, Microsoft Edge will be able to sync your browsing history, favorites, saved passwords, etc, across all your devices which have Edge running under the same account. The local account's data remains only available on the current device.

By default, Edge works with a single profile. It is usually named "Default". Profiles are stored under the following directories:

  • Microsoft Edge Stable: %LocalAppData%\Microsoft\Edge\User Data.
  • Microsoft Edge Beta: %LocalAppData%\Microsoft\Edge Beta\User Data.
  • Microsoft Edge Dev: %LocalAppData%\Microsoft\Edge Dev\User Data.
  • Microsoft Edge Canary: %LocalAppData%\Microsoft\Edge SxS\User Data.

To Add a Profile in Microsoft Edge Chromium,

  1. Open Microsoft Edge.
  2. Click on the People icon in the toolbar.
  3. Select Add a profile from the menu.
  4. In the next dialog click on the Add button.
  5. A new Microsoft Edge window will open with the newly created profile.

Now, you can click on Sign in to sync data if you want to use this new profile with a Microsoft Account and sync Edge settings between your computers.

You can switch between your profiles from the People menu.

Alternatively, you can create a new Edge profile from its settings.

Add a Profile in Microsoft Edge Settings

  1. Click on the menu button with three dots, or press Alt+F.
  2. Click on the Settings item.
  3. Go to in Settings > Profiles, or paste the following internal page URL into the address bar: edge://settings/profiles.
  4. Click on the the Add profile link on the right side.
  5. In the next dialog click on the Add button.
  6. A new Microsoft Edge window will open using the new profile.

Now, you can click on Sign in to sync data if you want to use this new profile with a Microsoft Account and sync Edge settings between your computers.

Note: If you have created more than one profile in Microsoft Edge, the browser will draw the current profile's picture as an overlay icon over the main Edge icon in the taskbar.

This allows you quickly find which profile you are using for a running Microsoft Edge app. Also, this is useful when you want to pin different Edge profiles to the taskbar.

Actual Edge Versions

Download Microsoft Edge

You can download pre-release Edge version for Insiders from here:

Download Microsoft Edge Insider Preview

The stable version of the browser is available on the following page:

Download Microsoft Edge Stable

Microsoft Edge is now a Chromium-based browser with a number of exclusive features like Read Aloud and services tied to Microsoft instead of Google. The browser has already received a few updates, with support for ARM64 devices in Edge Stable 80. Also, Microsoft Edge is still supporting a number of aging Windows versions, including Windows 7, which has recently reached its end of support. Check out Windows Versions Supported by Microsoft Edge Chromium and Edge Chromium latest roadmap. Finally, interested users can download MSI installers for deployment and customization.

For pre-release versions, Microsoft is currently using three channels to deliver updates to Edge Insiders. The Canary channel receives updates daily (except Saturday and Sunday), the Dev channel is getting updates weekly, and the Beta channel is updated every 6 weeks. Microsoft is going to support Edge Chromium on Windows 7, 8.1 and 10, alongside macOS, Linux (coming in the future) and mobile apps on iOS and Android. Windows 7 users will receive updates until July 15, 2021.

You will find many Edge tricks and features covered in the following post:

Hands-on with the new Chromium-based Microsoft Edge

Also, see the following updates.

 

 

 

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Author: Sergey Tkachenko

Sergey Tkachenko is a software developer who started Winaero back in 2011. On this blog, Sergey is writing about everything connected to Microsoft, Windows and popular software. Follow him on Telegram, Twitter, and YouTube.

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