Browser Profiles
Browser profiles
Route links into a specific Work or Personal profile, set up profile support, and choose supported browsers.
Browser profiles let you send a link into a specific profile inside a browser, like your Work profile in Chrome or your Personal profile in Firefox, instead of just opening the browser. This is a Pro feature, and it takes a quick one-time setup before you can use it.
What you need
Profiles have two requirements:
- BrowserFairy Pro. Browser Profiles is one of the three features you unlock with Pro, alongside Unlimited Rules and Import & Export. See Free and Pro to subscribe or start a free trial. Pro also includes priority support.
- A one-time setup in Settings, described below.
Supported browsers
Profiles work with six browsers: Chrome, Firefox, Brave, Edge, Helium, and Opera. Safari does not support profiles, so a rule that targets Safari always opens Safari directly.
For a browser's profiles to appear, you need to have opened that browser at least once and created the profiles inside it. BrowserFairy reads the profile names and colors that the browser has already saved to your Mac.
Set up profile support
You only do this once. Open BrowserFairy's menu bar icon, choose Settings…, and select General. Scroll to the Browser Profiles section. The footer lists the supported browsers as Supported browsers: Chrome, Firefox, Brave, Edge, Helium, Opera.
BrowserLauncher1. Turn on Enable browser profiles
Switch on Enable browser profiles ("Route links to a specific browser profile, like Work or Personal."). If you are not subscribed, this control is dimmed and shows a gold Pro badge that takes you to the BrowserFairy Pro pane.
2. Grant access with Set Up
Click Set Up. macOS opens an Allow Access panel asking you to choose your Application Support folder. The panel is already pointed at the right place, so just click Allow Access to confirm.
Keep the selected folder
The folder you grant access to must stay the one named "Application Support". If you navigate somewhere else, BrowserFairy declines the choice and beeps. This read-only access is how BrowserFairy reads your saved profile names and colors.
3. Run the Terminal command
Next, click Copy Command and Open Terminal. BrowserFairy copies a short command and opens Terminal for you. In the Terminal window, paste with ⌘V, then press Return to run it.
This Terminal step installs a tiny helper. Because BrowserFairy runs in Apple's app sandbox, it cannot open another app with a specific profile on its own, so the helper does that one small job for it.
When everything is in place, the Browser Profiles section shows Setup complete. Browser profiles are now enabled. You are done, and you will not need to repeat this.
Choose a profile for a rule
Once setup is complete, open the Rules Editor… from the menu bar and select a rule whose browser supports profiles. The rule sentence gains an in profile menu next to the browser name. Click it and pick a profile, or choose No specific profile (the default) to open the browser without targeting one.
Google Chromein profileWork (alex@acme.example)whenYou can also pick a profile by hand in the Browser Launcher. When you open the launcher for a link and a browser supports profiles, that browser's row shows a small submenu of its profiles.
Firefox profile colors
Firefox does not store a color for each profile, so BrowserFairy assigns one for you. These colors are just visual labels inside BrowserFairy and will not match the colors Firefox shows on its own.
When a profile cannot be used
Profiles fail safe. If your Pro subscription lapses, or a profile you picked has been renamed, removed, or turned off, the rule still runs and still opens the right browser. It simply opens that browser without the specific profile rather than skipping the rule or failing.
If profiles silently stop working, or a profile you expect is missing, see Troubleshooting.