How to create Profile shortcuts for different Microsoft Edge Profiles

Microsoft Edge profiles are easy ways to segregate your work and personal browsing. Instead of having to continuously switch between the opened profiles, you can create a shortcut to launch any one of them. In this article, I'm going to show you how to build those kinds of shortcuts for your own convenience.

How to Create Profile Shortcuts for different Edge Profiles

Creating a Desktop Shortcut for a Particular Edge Profile:

Find the Profile Directory: The default profile is usually named "Default." Extra profiles are numbered such as "Profile 1."

Create Shortcut:

Go to C:\\Program Files 

(x86)\\Microsoft\\Edge\\Application.

Right-click on msedge.exe and choose "Create shortcut."

Modify Shortcut Properties:

Right-click on the newly created shortcut and choose "Properties."

In the field "Target," add the following at the end: --profile-directory="Profile 1" ("Profile 1" replace with the name of the profile you want).

Click "Apply" and "OK."

Rename Shortcut Optional: Rename the shortcut, so the name matches the profile name.

Note: To create a shortcut of the default profile, you should use --profile-directory="Default" in the target path. Profile names are not changed if the display name of a profile is changed in Edge.

How to Add a new Edge profile to the taskbar or desktop.

Pin an Edge Profile to Taskbar:

You may want to pin it directly to your taskbar instead of navigating to a particular Edge profile through a menu option within the browser. This will be a nice and quick shortcut to open up your favorite profile quickly.

Steps to Pin a Profile:

Open Profile: Open Microsoft Edge. Click on your profile picture in the top right corner of the browser window. From here, select which profile you would like to open from the list of available profiles.

Right-Click on Profile Icon: An icon for the now-open profile will appear on the taskbar; right-click on it to pull up a contextual menu.

Click on "Pin to Taskbar": In the opened menu, click on the option labeled "Pin to taskbar."

Benefits of Pinning:

Ease of Use: The pinned profiles give you a shortcut and quick way to start your favorite browse-in-context without opening Edge and navigating through its profile selection menu.

Organization: You can visually organize the browser windows corresponding to different browsing contexts, like work, personal, or project-based.

Time-Saving: Well, pinning saves you a lot of time you would have wasted navigating through the profile selection process every time you want to get into your favored browsing environment.

Some Additional Tips:

Icon Customization: You could do this to help with further organization by customizing icons for your pinned profiles so that you will be able to differentiate them visually.

Multiple Profiles: You are able to pin multiple profiles onto the taskbar for easy switching between different browsing contexts.

If you consider these very easy steps, you will be able to pin the desired Edge profiles within the taskbar for enhancing your browsing efficiency and organization.