How to Create Password Protected User Profiles in Google Chrome

Although Google Chrome provides an incognito mode which can be used to browse anonymously, there are a few situations when you need to create separate user profiles for Google Chrome.

Consider a scenario when you share the computer with other family members, college friends or may be office staffs. All the shared users use Google Chrome for web browsing.

Whenever anyone else is using the same browser he may know what you have typed in the browser address bar, which sites you have visited and may be he visits that page to read what comments you have typed. This can be embarrassing, if you visit NSFW sites or adult sites and don’t want others to know about it.

The biggest annoyance is that you can’t save any bookmarks because shared users will know your most visited websites.

A separate Chrome profiles creates a separate set of user data, all your browsing history, bookmarks and searched terms are hidden from other users. You can even password protect the Chrome profile as described in the following tutorial:

Create Password Protected User Profiles in Google Chrome

1. Right click the chrome shortcut placed on the desktop and select “properties”. Switch to the ” Shortcut tab and highlight the “Target” text box.

2. Go the end of the line, hit space and add –enable-udd-profiles

3. Start Google Chrome and hit Ctrl + M to open the “Create a new profile” dialog box. Select “New profile” from the option dropdown and hit ok.

4. In the next step, give your profile a name, and select the check box “Create a desktop shortcut for this profile”.

5. Close Google Chrome and relaunch it again by double clicking the profile shortcut you just created.

6. Go to the Secure profile extension page and install the Secure profile Google Chrome extension. This extension will let you password protect your Google Chrome profile.

7. Once the extension is installed, it will prompt you to choose a password. Hit Ok and set a password for your Chrome profile.

You are all done. Ask all the shared users of the same computer to create their own profiles and choose a password (if required).

Each profile shortcut can be quickly accessed from the desktop and whenever anyone try to access a chrome profile, he will be prompted to enter the password for that profile. If the password is wrong, the browser will close.

The address bar, bookmarks bar and the start page will not work until the password is entered. Hence, all your local bookmarks, browsing history is saved and protected behind a password.

Also read: How to backup Google Chrome profiles