Claude Desktop multiple accounts: how to use more than one on a Mac

Why Claude Desktop shows one account at a time

A copy of Claude Desktop stores its sign-in and chats in one data folder on your Mac. In everyday use that means one signed-in account per copy of the app. If you sign out and sign in with a different email, you see the other account, but the first one is no longer signed in.

There is one exception. If a personal plan and a Team or Enterprise plan use the same email address, Anthropic's help center explains that you can switch between them from the account menu: click your initials in the bottom left corner and select the other account. That built-in switch only covers accounts that share an email. Accounts with different emails, such as a work address and a personal address, need one of the methods below.

Your options for more than one account

• Sign out and sign in. Free and built in. You lose your place each time, and only one account is ever open.
• Use claude.ai in a browser profile for the second account. Free, and each browser profile keeps its own sign-in. You get the web app rather than Claude Desktop, so desktop-only features such as desktop extensions aren't there.
• Launch a second copy of Claude Desktop with its own data folder. A community workaround, not an Anthropic feature. It works, but both copies look identical. See how to run multiple instances of Claude Desktop.
• Use a second macOS user account. Fully separate, but you have to switch Mac users to change Claude accounts.
• Use a profile manager such as Switch. Each account gets its own copy of Claude Desktop, color and shortcut, set up once.

If you only change accounts once a week, signing out is fine. If you move between accounts several times a day, a separate copy per account saves the most time.

Step 1: Create a profile for each account

Switch is a native Mac app for macOS 26 or later. Each profile it creates opens Anthropic's own Claude Desktop app, unmodified, pointed at that profile's own data folder. Switch checks Claude's signature before launching it and never patches or re-signs the app.

1. Open Switch and add a profile.
2. Give it a clear name, such as Work or Personal.
3. Pick one of 16 colors. The profile gets its own colored Dock icon, so you can tell accounts apart before you type.
4. Repeat for each account.

Profile data lives in ~/Library/Application Support/ClaudeProfiles, and each profile gets a shortcut in ~/Applications/Claude Profiles. The setup guide covers requirements in more detail.

Step 2: Sign in once per profile

Open a profile and sign in to the account it belongs to. Each profile keeps its own sign-in and chats, so all of them can stay signed in at the same time.

Claude finishes sign-in in your browser, and the browser hands the result back to whichever Claude window macOS picks, often the one that was already open. To avoid landing in the wrong profile, quit your other profiles, start sign-in from the new profile's window and finish there. Why a second sign-in opens the first account explains this in more detail.

Step 3: Add a shortcut and use them together

Give each profile a global keyboard shortcut, such as Control–Command–1 for Work and Control–Command–2 for Personal. Shortcuts work from any app while Switch is running, even with its window closed. If you quit Switch, the shortcuts stop. The keyboard shortcuts guide covers Claude's own shortcuts too.

When you want two accounts on screen at once, one click tiles every open profile side by side, each window outlined in its color. See using Claude Desktop windows side by side.

Each open profile uses memory like any other copy of Claude Desktop, so close the ones you aren't using. Profiles don't sync between Macs.

What multiple accounts don't change

One thing doesn't change with any of these methods: each account keeps its own plan and its own usage limits. Running several accounts is for keeping separate work apart, not for getting more usage. Rotating accounts to get around limits can conflict with Anthropic's terms.

Switch doesn't create or combine accounts, doesn't include an Anthropic subscription and doesn't show usage. It's not affiliated with Anthropic. For a closer look at what a profile is, read about Claude Desktop profiles for Mac. Switch 1.0 launches on 5 November 2026; until then you can join the early-access list.