Installing Multiple Opera Instances With Separate Profiles on Mac
Update 2011-01-28: From Opera 11.01 and onward, the -csp
command line hook should be used instead of the PrefsSuffix
method described below. See Daniel Aleksandersen's multi-installation blog entry for full details.
If you're an avid Opera snapshot downloader, you've probably bumped into a situation where you want to install an Opera build with a clean profile, rather than having it reuse an already existing profile.
At first sight, there's no easy way to do so, but luckily enough, there's a handy command line hook that helps you out. A quick step-by-step guide to explain how you can install 2 Opera instances with separate profiles:
- Install the first Opera instance in the Applications folder
- Rename it to
Opera_xxx
- Install the second Opera instance in the Applications folder
- Rename it to
Opera_yyy
- Open up Terminal (can be found in the Utilities folder)
- Type
cd /Applications/Opera_yyy.app/Contents/Resources/
and hit enter - Then type
echo "Opera_yyy" >> PrefsSuffix
and close the terminal - Done!
If you launch Opera_xxx
and Opera_yyy
now, they will each run with their own profile. Of course, you can adjust the file name and profile strings to your liking :-)