ai-profiles
Run multiple Claude and ChatGPT accounts on one Mac — the desktop app and the CLI, side by side — and move coding sessions between them. Free and open-source.
Landing page
The marketing landing page lives in apps/landing/ (Astro + Tailwind, deployed to Vercel).
Install
Download
Download the latest .dmg from Releases. Open it, drag ai-profiles.app to /Applications. Launch.
Build from source
You need Node.js 22+, pnpm, and Rust (rust-lang.org).
git clone https://github.com/bartekczyz/ai-profiles.git
cd ai-profiles
pnpm install
pnpm --filter ai-profiles tauri build --no-sign
--no-sign skips signing the auto-update archive, which needs a private key in TAURI_SIGNING_PRIVATE_KEY. Without it the build fails at the end with A public key has been found, but no private key.
The .dmg lands in apps/ai-profiles/src-tauri/target/release/bundle/dmg/. macOS will warn on first launch because the local build isn't notarized — right-click the .app → Open → Open to bypass Gatekeeper.
Supported apps
| App | Desktop launcher | CLI wrapper | Auth isolation |
|---|
| Claude (Desktop + Claude Code CLI) | Claude (<Name>).app | claude-<slug> (sets CLAUDE_CONFIG_DIR) | macOS Keychain entry derived from config dir |
| ChatGPT (Desktop) + Codex (CLI) | ChatGPT (<Name>).app | codex-<slug> (sets CODEX_HOME) | plain auth.json inside profile's CODEX_HOME — isolation is automatic |
Using ai-profiles
Create a profile from the sidebar — choose an app (Claude or ChatGPT), give it a name, pick a colour, and choose which surfaces you want (desktop app, CLI, or both). The app generates everything you need on the spot:
- Desktop app. A
Claude (<Name>).app or ChatGPT (<Name>).app launcher lands in /Applications. Double-click to open the app with that profile's account, history, and settings. Spotlight, Launchpad, Finder, and ⌘-Tab all see it as its own app, tinted with the profile colour.
- CLI. A
claude-<slug> or codex-<slug> command appears on your PATH. Run it in any terminal to start the CLI with that profile's config and login. Each profile keeps its own session and credentials.
Switch profiles from the sidebar, with ⌘1..⌘9 to jump to a slot, ⌘F to filter the list, or ⌘K to open the command palette. ⌘N creates a new profile, ⌘, opens Settings.
Already using Claude Desktop, Claude Code, or ChatGPT/Codex? On first launch the app offers to import your existing setup into your first profile. You can rerun this later from Settings → Data → "Detect and import…".
Deleting a profile from its detail view removes the launcher and CLI wrapper; the profile's data either goes to the Trash or is deleted outright, your choice.
What profiles share
Profiles separate your account, not your working setup. Skills, subagents, slash commands and your global instructions are inert content describing how you work, so a new profile inherits them from your main install (~/.claude or ~/.codex) instead of starting empty:
| Inherited from your main install | Kept separate per profile |
|---|
skills/, agents/, commands/, rules/, workflows/, output-styles/ | account and credentials (Keychain entry / auth.json) |
CLAUDE.md for Claude, AGENTS.md for Codex — your global instructions | settings.json, including hooks and permissions |
| plugins/, MCP servers, session and project history |
Anything executable or credentialed stays isolated: a hook you add for one account can't fire inside another, and a permissive tool allowlist can't leak into a work profile.
The inherited entries are symlinks, written into the profile's config dir when its CLI wrapper is generated. They are only ever created over an empty path, so a profile can opt out — give it a real directory and it keeps its own copy from then on:
cd ~/Library/Application\ Support/ai-profiles/profiles/<id>/cli-config
rm skills && mkdir skills
Profiles created by migrating an existing install already hold their own copy of everything, so they inherit nothing.
Usage stats
Each profile's detail page shows that profile's current quota utilization alongside the launcher and CLI buttons. A small countdown tells you when the next auto-refresh will fire (every 5 minutes while the card is visible), or you can hit the ↻ button to refresh on demand.
Claude profiles show three meters: the rolling 5-hour window, the 7-day window, and the 7-day Sonnet sub-window. Under the hood the card calls Anthropic's /api/oauth/usage endpoint using the profile's own OAuth token, read from the macOS Keychain entry Claude Code created when you signed in. The quota endpoint and the Keychain naming convention are undocumented Anthropic internals — if either changes, the meters may show — until we ship a patch.
Codex profiles show two meters: the 5-hour window and the weekly window. The card drives codex app-server over its JSON-RPC protocol (account/rateLimits/read) — no separate auth is needed because the app-server reads from the profile's own CODEX_HOME/auth.json directly.
Sessions
Each profile's detail page lists its local coding sessions: Claude Code for Claude profiles (the CLI and the Claude desktop app's Code tab), Codex for ChatGPT profiles (the CLI, IDE, and the ChatGPT desktop app). claude.ai and ChatGPT chats live on the server, so they don't appear here.
Move a session to another account. Move a session to another profile of the same app and carry on there with its full history. Claude sessions move between Claude profiles, Codex sessions between ChatGPT profiles; you can't move a session from Claude to Codex or back. Moves work with your default install (~/.claude / ~/.codex) too.
- Claude: the transcript, its file history, and new project memory files are copied to the destination. If you're signed in to the destination's desktop app, the session shows up there too; otherwise only the CLI half moves.
- Codex: the rollout is copied to the destination's
CODEX_HOME and registered through codex app-server.
Nothing is ever deleted. A move copies the session, then archives it at the source, so Restore undoes it. A file the move would overwrite is backed up first, and if the destination holds a newer copy you have to opt in to replacing it.
Archive and restore. The panel has Active and Archived tabs. Archiving a desktop session uses the desktop app's own archive flag, so sessions you archived inside Claude show up here too. Archiving a CLI-only Claude session moves it into <config>/ai-profiles-archive/, which also keeps it clear of Claude Code's 30-day cleanup. Codex sessions use Codex's own archive.
Search by title, folder, or last prompt, filter Desktop vs CLI, and sort by last used.
A session still open in a terminal can't be moved or archived; close it first. If the desktop app has it open, the confirm dialog offers to quit that profile's instance (and only that one) before it goes ahead.
Repair. Claude desktop sessions created before ai-profiles pointed the desktop app at its profile's config dir have their transcripts in ~/.claude. They list under the profile that owns them, and a banner offers to move them into place.
Onboarding
First launch. A welcome dialog appears once; after that you land on the empty state with a single "+ New profile" CTA. There is no auto-prompt — the next step is on you.
Creating your first profile when you already have Claude or ChatGPT/Codex installed. Clicking "+ New profile" opens a fork dialog with two paths:
- Just add a new profile, keep existing install as-is (default — press Enter). Leaves your existing install untouched.
claude or codex keeps working with your current account. The new profile is fully separate and accessed via claude-<slug> or codex-<slug>.
- Migrate existing install into a profile. Adopts your existing
~/.claude (and ~/Library/Application Support/Claude if Claude Desktop is installed), or ~/.codex (and ~/Library/Application Support/Codex if the ChatGPT desktop app is installed), as your first profile. See "What migrate does" below.
What migrate does
Three steps, in order:
- Copies your existing data into the new profile dir under
~/Library/Application Support/ai-profiles/profiles/<id>/. Symlinks stay symlinks, with relative targets re-pointed so they still resolve once the originals move in step 2 — skill managers routinely install links that reach outside ~/.claude.
- Moves the originals (
~/.claude and/or ~/Library/Application Support/Claude for Claude; ~/.codex and/or ~/Library/Application Support/Codex for Codex) into a timestamped backup dir under ~/Library/Application Support/ai-profiles/migration-backup-<timestamp>/.
- Generates the per-profile launcher (
Claude (<Name>).app or ChatGPT (<Name>).app) and CLI wrapper (claude-<slug> or codex-<slug> in ~/.local/bin).
After migrating
- Use
claude-<slug> instead of claude (or codex-<slug> instead of codex) to reach your old account. The wrapper sets CLAUDE_CONFIG_DIR (Claude) or CODEX_HOME (Codex) to the profile dir.
- The plain
claude or codex command still works, but with no ~/.claude / ~/.codex present it'll start a fresh install dir on next invocation. It's not broken — it just sees an empty config.
- Claude profiles: you'll be prompted to log in once. macOS Keychain service names are derived from
CLAUDE_CONFIG_DIR, so credentials don't carry across.
- Codex profiles: auth is stored in
auth.json inside CODEX_HOME, so a codex login re-run in the new profile dir is all that's needed.
- Settings, history, MCP config, and project memory all come with the migration.
Reverting a migration
Backups stay on disk for 7 days, then auto-delete. To roll back manually before then:
For a Claude migration:
# 1. Delete the profile from ai-profiles (Trash or keep, your choice).
# 2. Restore the originals from the backup dir:
mv ~/Library/Application\ Support/ai-profiles/migration-backup-<timestamp>/.claude ~/.claude
mv ~/Library/Application\ Support/ai-profiles/migration-backup-<timestamp>/Claude ~/Library/Application\ Support/Claude
# 3. Open Claude. It'll see your old config again.
For a Codex migration:
# 1. Delete the profile from ai-profiles (Trash or keep, your choice).
# 2. Restore the originals from the backup dir:
mv ~/Library/Application\ Support/ai-profiles/migration-backup-<timestamp>/.codex ~/.codex
mv ~/Library/Application\ Support/ai-profiles/migration-backup-<timestamp>/Codex ~/Library/Application\ Support/Codex
# 3. Open ChatGPT. It'll see your old config again.
Triggering migration later
If you picked "just add a new profile" but later change your mind, open Settings → Data → Re-import… (or press ⌘I). The same migration flow runs.
Resetting onboarding
Settings → Reset onboarding flags shows the welcome dialog (and the fork dialog) again on next launch. It does not touch profiles, backups, or your theme.
FAQ
Why do I have to log in to Claude Code again after importing my existing install?
The Keychain service name is derived from your CLAUDE_CONFIG_DIR, which changes when you move into a per-profile directory. The credentials don't carry over. You only need to log in once per profile.
Why does the Dock show Claude's regular icon instead of my profile's color?
The launcher .app immediately execs the real Claude.app, so the running Dock icon belongs to Claude. The custom color shows up in Spotlight, Finder, Launchpad, and Cmd-Tab — anywhere the launcher itself is referenced. We're tracking better Dock-icon options for v1.1.
My new profile launcher doesn't open as claude-<slug> from my terminal.
~/.local/bin isn't on your PATH. Open Settings → System and click "Install / re-install hook", or add the line manually to your .zshrc / .bashrc / config.fish. Open a new terminal to pick up the change.
I installed a new skill and my profile's CLI doesn't see it.
Profiles link to the skills in your main install, so anything you install there shows up in every profile with no extra step. If a profile sees no inherited skills at all, its links haven't been written yet — they're created whenever the profile's CLI wrapper is generated, so editing the profile (changing its colour, say) will produce them. Profiles that migrated an existing install keep their own copy and inherit nothing by design.
I put an AGENTS.md in my Claude config dir and nothing happened.
Claude Code reads AGENTS.md at project scope only; its user-scope instructions file is CLAUDE.md. Codex is the other way round and reads ~/.codex/AGENTS.md. That's why the table above names a different file per app.
Does this send any of my data anywhere?
No. The app is local-only and has no analytics, no telemetry, no remote logging. It makes only these outbound requests:
- Auto-update checks the GitHub Releases manifest.
- The usage card asks Anthropic for a Claude profile's quota, signed in as that profile. Codex profiles ask through the
codex CLI.
- The estimated API cost downloads LiteLLM's public price list from GitHub, at most once a day and only once you view an estimate. It's a plain download that carries nothing about your profiles, transcripts or accounts; the estimate itself is worked out on your machine.
Can I migrate later if I skipped the first-run prompt?
Yes — Settings → Data → "Detect and import…".
Is this safe? What about my credentials?
Each Claude profile gets a separate Keychain entry derived from its config directory. We don't read or copy your credentials; Claude Code handles all of that. The CLI isolation behavior depends on undocumented Claude Code internals (its SHA-256 service-name derivation), and could break in a future Claude Code release. If it does we'll patch.
Codex profiles store credentials in a plain auth.json inside each profile's CODEX_HOME directory. Isolation is automatic — there is no Keychain involvement.
The usage meters on the profile detail page show — instead of numbers — what's wrong?
For Claude profiles, the card calls Anthropic's /api/oauth/usage endpoint, which is undocumented and may change shape without notice. If the response stops matching what we parse, the affected meters render as — rather than crashing. Note that the first refresh after a fresh install triggers a macOS Keychain access prompt — click "Always Allow" so it doesn't recur.
For Codex profiles, the card drives codex app-server over JSON-RPC. If the Codex CLI is not on your PATH or the JSON-RPC protocol changes, the meters will show —. File an issue and we'll patch.
Why "Settings" instead of "Preferences"?
macOS deprecated "Preferences" in favor of "Settings" in Ventura. We follow the current convention.
Support
If ai-profiles saves you time, you can buy me a coffee. It helps keep the project active — thanks!
Not affiliated with Anthropic or OpenAI
ai-profiles is an independent project. It is not endorsed by, affiliated with, or supported by Anthropic or OpenAI. "Claude" and "Anthropic" are trademarks of Anthropic, PBC. "Codex" and "ChatGPT" are trademarks of OpenAI.
Acknowledgements
ai-profiles is inspired by Multi-Claude, a paid macOS app that pioneered the --user-data-dir profile-wrapper approach for Claude Desktop. ai-profiles extends the idea to the Claude Code CLI and ships free + open-source.
License
MIT
