Two separate Brave browsers on one Mac
Can you run two separate Brave browsers on a Mac?
Brave's profiles keep accounts apart, for free, in windows of one Brave. Parallex adds a second Brave as an instance of its own: Brave started with a data folder of its own, opened on its own, its windows outlined in its color, with the links you choose sent to it.
Keep a work Brave beside your own as a separate instance: its own sign-ins, cookies, history, extensions and Brave settings, opened from Parallex, the menu bar or a shortcut, its windows outlined in its color.
How
- Install Parallex (below). Your Brave isn't changed.
- Choose New Instance and pick Brave. Name it for what it's for, like “Brave Work”, and give it a color.
- Open it and sign in with the other account. Both run at once, each in its own windows, outlined in the instance's color.
Or without Parallex: every way to run an app twice on a Mac, compared.
What you get with Brave
- Its own data folder: Parallex starts Brave with a data folder of its own, so its sign-ins, cookies, history and extensions are separate from your Brave's.
- Window outlines in its color, and its name in the menu bar, so you can tell the two apart at a glance.
- Opened on its own: from Parallex, the menu bar, the ⌃⌥Space switcher or a keyboard shortcut of its own.
- Links to the right browser: send links from other apps to the instance, with rules per site.
- Own identity, when you want it: a copy of Brave with its own Dock icon, notifications and macOS permissions, which Parallex keeps up to date. The lab tries this copy every night too.
Tested every night
Parallex's compatibility lab makes a fresh instance of Brave 154.1.96.61 (the app itself, opened with a profile folder of its own, as New Instance makes it) every night on a clean Mac and opens it. On October 4, 2026, on macOS 26.6.2, it ran, and nothing reached the original's data. Its instances have run clean on all 2 nights since October 3. Made as its own copy instead (Own identity), it ran clean too. See every app's latest result.
Good to know
- The instance is Brave itself, so it shares Brave's Dock icon unless you turn on Own identity; its windows are outlined in its color instead.
Questions
Brave already has profiles. Why this?
Profiles live inside one Brave, and links from other apps land in whichever was used last. An instance is a separate Brave with its own data folder, opened on its own, and the links you choose go straight to it.
Can I do it in Terminal instead?
Yes: open -n -a "Brave Browser" --args --user-data-dir=<folder> starts a separate Brave with its own data. Parallex does the same thing, with a name, a color, a shortcut and links that go to the right browser.
Get Parallex
Free to try, for macOS 14 and later. In Terminal:
curl -fsSL https://parallex.mandip.dev/install | shOr download the disk image, or with Homebrew: brew install --cask mandipadk/parallex/parallex. Then choose New Instance, pick Brave, and give it a name.
Already have Parallex?
This opens New Instance with Brave picked; you name it and choose its color.
Make a second Brave