Do You Need a Second Browser, or Just a Second Profile?
Creating Edge browser multiple profiles gives you separate cookie jars, histories, saved passwords, extensions and settings inside one installation, and each profile opens in its own window. You build one from the profile icon in the toolbar, choose Personal or Work or school, then decide whether to sign in for sync. This guide walks the exact flow, the settings worth checking afterwards, and the limits you hit once you pass a handful of profiles.
📌 TL;DR Executive Summary
- Core Takeaway: Profile icon → Set up a new profile → Personal or Work or school → sync or stay local. Each profile keeps its own cookies, history, passwords, extensions and preferences, and opens in a separate window.
- Key Risk/Challenge: Profiles separate browser data only. They share one IP address and one set of device-level rendering signals, Edge has no per-profile proxy field, and every profile you leave open costs RAM and disk.
- Recommended Solution: Name and colour each profile, review automatic switching at edge://settings/profiles/multiProfileSettings, and move to a profile manager such as Send.win when you need per-profile proxies, team handover or the same client account on more than one machine.
How to Create a New Profile in Edge, Step by Step
Setting up Edge browser multiple profiles takes under a minute per profile, and you can repeat it as often as you need. Microsoft updated its own guide to creating Edge profiles in September 2026, and the order below matches that flow.
- Click the profile icon. It sits at the far right of the toolbar, next to the window controls. Clicking it lists every profile already on the machine, plus Guest.
- Select “Set up a new profile”. Older builds label it “Add profile”; both launch the same wizard.
- Choose Personal or Work or school. This mainly shapes the sign-in prompt. Personal accepts any Microsoft account or none; Work or school nudges you towards an organisational one.
- Decide on sync. Sign in with a Microsoft account to carry bookmarks, passwords and extensions across devices, or pick the option that starts the profile without your data. Sign-in is optional.
- Limit what syncs. Go to Settings > Profiles > Sync and uncheck anything you would rather keep on one machine. Passwords are the usual candidate.
- Confirm the new window. Edge opens the profile separately with a different avatar. No tabs, history or logins from your first profile follow you in.
Then verify, because a profile that looks right can still be missing pieces:
- Open
edge://settings/profilesin the new window and confirm the profile appears with the name you expect. - Open
edge://versionin the same window — the profile path line shows exactly where that profile’s data lives. - Open
edge://extensionsin two windows. The lists should differ, because extensions install per profile.
edge://extensions in a fresh profile before you work in it. A password manager or blocker that lives only in profile #1 is silently absent in profile #4 — you usually notice mid-login, on an account you do not own.
Switching Between Profiles Without Losing Your Place
Click the profile icon and pick the profile you want. If a window for it is already open, Edge brings that window forward; if not, it opens a new one. That part is predictable. What surprises people is automatic profile switching, where Edge hands a link from a Microsoft service to the profile signed into the matching account.
Everything about that behaviour lives at edge://settings/profiles/multiProfileSettings, where you can review and customise the automatic switching options. If you keep client work in separate profiles, read that page once from top to bottom — an unexpected redirect costs you ten minutes when it happens mid-task. The habit that saves the most time is one window per profile, always, and a glance at the avatar before you type a password.
For repeated work inside a single profile, extension-based session tools keep several logins in one window; an isolated session setup in Edge like Sessionbox Edge setup is one example. Weigh it against profile-per-account: sessions save clicks, separate profiles give cleaner separation.
Rename, Colour and Label Profiles So You Don’t Mix Them Up
Go to edge://settings/profiles, click the profile you want to edit, and change its name and icon. You can give each profile a distinct colour, and that matters more than it sounds — colour is the fastest cue when four windows are stacked on one screen.
Profiles also carry their own theme and default search engine, as Edge’s profile features document. That helps when one profile serves a UK client and another a US client: region and language defaults stay where you put them instead of drifting back to the system setting.
What Actually Stays Separate Between Edge Profiles
Microsoft describes each profile as having its own settings, bookmarks, extensions, themes and preferences inside one browser. That covers more than most people assume, and less than some hope. Here is the honest split.
| What you’re comparing | Separate per profile? | What it means day to day |
|---|---|---|
| Cookies and site sessions | Yes | Two profiles can stay signed into two different accounts on the same site at once. |
| Saved passwords and autofill | Yes | Each profile carries its own password store and form data. |
| History and bookmarks | Yes | Nothing from your personal profile appears in the client one. |
| Extensions and their settings | Yes | Install once per profile; a blocker present in one window is missing in the next until you add it. |
| Cache and site storage | Yes | Stored inside each profile’s own folder, so local disk use grows with every profile you add. |
| Theme, search engine, startup page | Yes | Region and language defaults stay where you set them. |
| IP address | No | Every profile leaves through the same connection. Edge has no per-profile proxy field. |
| Device-level rendering signals | No | Same machine, same rendering, same installed fonts across all profiles. |
| Windows account and file access | No | Anyone who can open Edge on that Windows login can open your profiles. |
Read the bottom rows twice. Separate cookies are why two profiles can hold two logins on the same site at once. Those rows are local separation; the ones under the IP line are shared at the device level — one connection, one piece of hardware, one font list.
That distinction matters when you manage accounts for other people. Platform checks look at more than cookies: which network you arrive from, how your browser renders text and graphics, which fonts are installed. Local profile separation changes none of that, and no Edge setting will. When accounts must be reached from their own region, each needs its own exit IP — the setup order in this guide to using browser profiles with proxies is worth reading before you open more windows.
Where Edge Keeps Profile Data, and What a Reinstall Does to It
Edge stores profile data inside your Windows user folder — typically AppData\Local\Microsoft\Edge\User Data, with each profile in its own folder under that root. Open edge://version in the profile you care about and you will see the exact path for that one. Use that line rather than guessing; the location also differs on macOS and Linux.
Two consequences follow. Disk use climbs with every profile, because each stores its own cache, history and extensions. And a profile that was never signed into a Microsoft account exists only on that machine: a complete reinstall wipes it, while signed-in profiles restore after you sign in again because their data lives in the sync service. If you copy a User Data folder by hand, close Edge fully first — copying while the browser is still writing can leave a snapshot that will not open cleanly.
Sync: The Setting That Quietly Merges Two Identities
Each Edge profile can link to a different Microsoft account, or stay local with no account at all. When you do sign in, bookmarks, passwords and extensions sync across the devices signed into that account, and you control the scope under Settings > Profiles > Sync.
The trap for anyone juggling several accounts is signing the wrong Microsoft account into the wrong profile. Sync then copies personal bookmarks and saved passwords into the window you use for client work, or the reverse. It takes ten seconds to check and considerably longer to untangle.
Guest Mode: What It Is and What It Isn’t
Guest mode gives you a temporary browsing context with no history and no saved data. Once every guest window is closed, the guest data is discarded — there is no way back into that session.
That makes it right for checking a link on a borrowed laptop, opening a one-off file, or letting someone else look something up. It is not a substitute for a real profile: no persistent client login, no extensions, and closing the last window ends everything.
Deleting a Profile Without Deleting the Wrong Thing
- Click the profile icon in the toolbar.
- Choose Profile settings, which lands you on
edge://settings/profiles. - Find the profile in the list and click the delete button beside it.
- Confirm with “Remove profile”. Edge removes the profile and its data immediately.
- Check afterwards: the profile disappears from the toolbar list, your other profiles open normally, and
edge://versioninside a remaining profile still points at its own folder.
Before you confirm, remember what leaves with it: cookies, history, saved passwords and extensions for that profile are gone. If it held the only remembered login for an account you do not own, have the credentials in front of you first — a platform’s password reset is slower than reading a stored password.
Pitfalls: Where Edge Profiles Stop Being Enough
None of these are bugs. They are the boundaries of Edge browser multiple profiles, and knowing them stops you blaming the wrong thing when something breaks.
There is no per-profile proxy in Edge
All profiles share the connection your machine is using. If you want profile A on one exit IP and profile B on another, Edge cannot do it from inside the browser — you need OS-level routing or a tool with proxy fields per profile. This is the single biggest reason people outgrow Edge profiles for client work.
Profiles do not change device-level signals
Two Edge profiles on one laptop render pages identically, use the same fonts and arrive from the same IP. Anything a site can observe outside cookies looks the same in both windows. The same limitation applies to multiple profiles in Google Chrome, which follow a near-identical model.
Memory and disk, not an unlimited free-for-all
Guides that call the profile count unlimited are describing a settings page that will not stop you, not a machine that will not slow down. Every open profile carries its own windows, tabs and extension processes, and each one stores its own cache on disk. A handful is comfortable on a modern laptop; once you are running many at once, close the ones you are not using.
Automatic switching can move links behind your back
If a profile is signed into a Microsoft work account, Edge may hand matching links to that profile. Useful when it is right, confusing when it is not. Review edge://settings/profiles/multiProfileSettings and decide deliberately rather than discovering it during a deadline.
Edge profiles are not Windows accounts, and not permission
A Windows account separates files, permissions and operating-system settings. An Edge profile separates browser data only: anyone using the same Windows login can open your profiles, read your bookmarks and see your signed-in sessions. A profile is also not authorisation to hold more accounts than a platform allows. Where a platform restricts multiple accounts, use its official route — Amazon’s approval process for an additional seller account, or Business Manager roles for agencies on Meta. A restricted account is fixed through that platform’s own verification or appeal process, never through a workaround.
Some platforms do not officially support Edge
Several major account platforms publish a list of supported browsers, and Edge is not always on it. Logins usually still work, but access through an unsupported browser can trigger extra verification steps, and support staff may ask you to reproduce an issue in a supported browser. Worth knowing before you blame a profile.
When a Dedicated Profile Manager Makes More Sense
Edge browser multiple profiles work inside a clear boundary: a handful of identities, one person, one machine, one network. Friction appears when you need per-profile proxies, when a colleague has to open the same signed-in profile without a password changing hands, or when the same client account must be reachable from a laptop and a desktop.
That is the gap Send.win fills. Every profile there has its own cookies, storage, sessions, fingerprint settings and proxy, kept separate per profile rather than per browser. It runs as the Sendwin Browser desktop app on Windows, macOS and Linux, or in the cloud from any device. Residential proxies are included on Pro and Team, and timezone, locale, WebRTC and geolocation follow the proxy’s exit IP, so you are not matching region settings by hand across windows. Sharing a profile with a paid teammate opens it already signed in, and cloud sync keeps logins consistent across your devices. It is built for manual work — there is no API, SDK or headless mode. If you are still weighing tools, this browser profile manager comparison lays out the trade-offs side by side.
🏆 Send.win Verdict
Edge browser multiple profiles are the right first step. They cost nothing, take a minute to create, and genuinely separate cookies, passwords, extensions and history. They stop at the network and the device: one IP for every window, one set of rendering signals, and no way to hand a signed-in profile to a teammate or a second machine. Send.win picks up exactly there — isolated profiles with their own proxy and fingerprint settings, as a desktop app or in the cloud, with profile sharing that opens a client’s session already signed in.
See Send.win plans — paid plans start at $19/mo with a 7-day money-back guarantee on the first card purchase, and the free cloud demo needs no install: 10 minutes a day to look around before you buy.
Frequently Asked Questions
How many profiles can I create in Edge?
Microsoft does not publish a hard cap, and the settings page will not stop you at a small number. The practical ceiling is your machine: RAM for the profiles you keep open, disk for the ones you keep saved. Most people run a handful comfortably and feel the cost past that.
How do I switch between Edge profiles quickly?
Click the profile icon and choose the profile; Edge focuses its window or opens a new one. Keep one window per profile so the avatar tells you where you are at a glance. If links keep landing in the wrong profile, review the automatic switching options at edge://settings/profiles/multiProfileSettings.
Do Edge profiles keep cookies and logins separate?
Yes. Each profile has its own cookie store, history, saved passwords and extensions, so you can be signed into two different accounts on the same site in two windows at once. What they do not separate is your IP address or the way your device renders pages.
Where does Edge store profile data on Windows?
By default under AppData\Local\Microsoft\Edge\User Data in your Windows user folder, with each profile in its own folder beneath that. Open edge://version in the profile to see its exact path. Only copy that folder for backup while Edge is fully closed.
Can two Edge profiles be open at the same time?
Yes — each profile opens in its own window and you can run several side by side. The limit is memory rather than a setting, since every open profile carries its own windows, tabs and extensions. If windows feel sluggish, close a profile instead of adding another.
Are Edge profiles the same as Windows user accounts?
No. A Windows account separates files, permissions and operating-system settings. An Edge profile separates browser data only — cookies, history, extensions and preferences inside one Windows session, reachable by anyone using that login.
Do Edge browser multiple profiles change my IP address or browser fingerprint?
No. All profiles on one machine leave through the same connection, and Edge has no per-profile proxy setting. They also render on the same hardware with the same installed fonts, so the signals a site can observe outside cookies stay identical across your profiles.
What happens to my Edge profiles if I reinstall Windows?
Profiles linked to a Microsoft account restore when you sign in again, because bookmarks, passwords and extensions live in sync. Profiles kept local with no account are stored on that machine only and disappear with a complete reinstall, so export anything you would miss first.
How Send.win Helps With Edge Browser Multiple Profiles
Send.win is a browser profile manager for professionals and teams: every account gets its own isolated browser profile.
- Isolated profiles – separate cookies, storage and sessions per profile
- Fingerprint protection – each profile keeps its own consistent browser fingerprint, so profiles never share one browser identity
- Desktop app + cloud browser – native app for Windows, macOS and Linux, or run profiles in the cloud with no install
- Residential proxies included – on Pro and Team, with timezone and locale matched to the proxy
- Team sharing – share a signed-in profile with a teammate without sharing the password
Try the free cloud demo — no install — or download the desktop app. Paid plans start at $19/month, and your first card purchase is covered by a 7-day money-back guarantee (see pricing).