Claude Switch

Run your work and personal Claude side by side — Claude Code and Claude Desktop — fully isolated, at the same time, with sign-in that always lands in the right account.

  ╭────────────────────────────────────────╮
  │ ◆ claude-switch v0.1.0                 │
  │   Work & personal Claude, side by side │
  ╰────────────────────────────────────────╯

  PROFILE        CLAUDE CODE                           DESKTOP     SIGN-IN BROWSER
  ● Work ★       ✔ samrand@company.com · Company     ● running   Edge · Work <samrand@company.com>
  ● Personal     ✔ samrand@gmail.com                 ● running   Chrome · private sandbox profile

? What would you like to do? ›
❯ ▶  Claude Code
  ⧉  Claude Code in a new tab / window
  ▶  Claude Desktop
  ▶  Claude Desktop — all profiles
  ⚿  Sign in
  ☰  Profiles
  ⚙  Settings & theme
  ✚  Doctor

One Rust binary (cswitch) for Windows, macOS and Linux, with arrow-key menus for everything — no flags to memorize.

Why

Running two Claude accounts on one machine breaks in three places:

Problem	What actually happens	How Claude Switch fixes it
Shared state	Claude Code keeps config, history and credentials in ~/.claude; Claude Desktop keeps its session in one app-data folder. Only one account fits.	Every profile gets its own CLAUDE_CONFIG_DIR and its own Desktop --user-data-dir. Nothing is shared.
Can't run both	Claude Desktop is single-instance — a second launch just focuses the first window.	The single-instance lock is keyed by the data folder, so each profile is its own app. Both run at once.
Sign-in opens the wrong Claude	Claude Code opens the default browser (already signed in to the other account). Claude Desktop finishes Google/SSO/email sign-in through a claude:// link, and Windows always hands it to the default Claude window — Claude even re-registers that link on every start.	Claude Code's $BROWSER points at Claude Switch, which opens the profile's own browser profile (or a private sandbox). For Desktop, Claude Switch becomes the claude:// handler and routes each sign-in link to the window that asked for it, and re-claims the link whenever Claude takes it back.

It also strips inherited ANTHROPIC_API_KEY / CLAUDE_CODE_OAUTH_TOKEN / CLAUDE_CONFIG_DIR variables that would otherwise silently override a profile's sign-in, and warns you if two profiles end up signed in to the same account.

Install

Download the installer for your system from the Releases page, install it, then run cswitch — the setup wizard does the rest. Every build exists for x86_64 and arm64.

System	Installer	Install with
Windows 10 / 11 (x64)	claude-switch-<version>-windows-x64-setup.exe	double-click
Windows 11 on ARM	claude-switch-<version>-windows-arm64-setup.exe	double-click
macOS, Apple Silicon	claude-switch-<version>-macos-arm64.pkg	double-click
macOS, Intel	claude-switch-<version>-macos-x86_64.pkg	double-click
Debian, Ubuntu, Mint…	claude-switch_<version>-1_amd64.deb / _arm64.deb	sudo apt install ./claude-switch_*.deb
Fedora, RHEL, openSUSE…	claude-switch-<version>-1.x86_64.rpm / .aarch64.rpm	sudo dnf install ./claude-switch-*.rpm
Alpine	claude-switch_<version>-r1_x86_64.apk / _aarch64.apk	sudo apk add --allow-untrusted ./claude-switch_*.apk
Arch, Manjaro…	claude-switch-<version>-1-x86_64.pkg.tar.zst / -aarch64	sudo pacman -U ./claude-switch-*.pkg.tar.zst
Any Linux	cswitch-x86_64-unknown-linux-musl.tar.gz / aarch64	portable static binary — run ./cswitch install

Portable archives (cswitch-<target>.zip / .tar.gz) and SHA256SUMS.txt are attached too.

What the installers do:

• Windows — per-user, no administrator rights. Copies Claude Switch to %LOCALAPPDATA%\Programs\Claude Switch and runs cswitch install: %USERPROFILE%\.cswitch\bin on your PATH, claude-<profile> commands, Start-menu shortcuts and the claude:// link router. Remove it from Settings → Apps (it asks whether to keep your profiles). Silent install for scripts / Intune: claude-switch-…-setup.exe /VERYSILENT /SUPPRESSMSGBOXES.
• macOS — installs into /usr/local/claude-switch and links /usr/local/bin/cswitch plus zsh / bash / fish completions (it never changes ownership of /usr/local folders, so Homebrew is unaffected).
• Linux — installs /usr/bin/cswitch and shell completions. The binary is static, so the same package works on any distribution of that family.

On macOS and Linux, cswitch install (run by the wizard) links ~/.cswitch/bin/cswitch to the packaged binary, so upgrading the package upgrades every claude-<profile> command too.

Unsigned downloads. The installers are not code-signed yet. Windows SmartScreen may say "Windows protected your PC" → More info → Run anyway. macOS may refuse to open the .pkg → System Settings → Privacy & Security → Open Anyway (or use install.sh below, which is not affected).

One-time Windows step. Windows only lets you choose which app opens claude:// links. The wizard opens the right Settings page (cswitch router settings does too): find the link type CLAUDE and pick Claude Switch. cswitch router test confirms it.

Install from a terminal

# Windows (PowerShell) — latest release, or -Version nightly / v1.2.3, or -Path .\cswitch.exe
irm https://raw.githubusercontent.com/samrand96/claude-switch/HEAD/install.ps1 | iex

# macOS / Linux — CSWITCH_VERSION=nightly or v1.2.3, CSWITCH_BIN=./cswitch, CSWITCH_NO_SETUP=1 are optional
curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/samrand96/claude-switch/HEAD/install.sh | sh

Both scripts pick the right build for your CPU, verify it against SHA256SUMS.txt and start the setup wizard. Until there is a stable release they install the nightly pre-release.

Build from source

cargo build --release            # target/release/cswitch(.exe)
target/release/cswitch install   # or: cswitch setup
# Static Linux binaries (any distro), x86_64 or arm64 — links with Rust's own rust-lld:
rustup target add aarch64-unknown-linux-musl
cargo build --release --target aarch64-unknown-linux-musl

Quick start

cswitch                 # menu (first run: setup wizard)
cswitch login work      # sign 'work' in: Code + Desktop, right browser, right window
claude-work             # Claude Code as work   (same as: cswitch code work)
claude-personal         # …and personal, in another terminal, at the same time
cswitch desktop work    # Claude Desktop as work
cswitch desktop --all   # every profile's Desktop
cswitch status          # who is signed in where

Commands

Command	What it does
cswitch	Interactive menu (status table + everything below)
cswitch setup	Wizard: detect, create profiles, pick browsers, install, link router, shortcuts
cswitch code [profile] [-n|--here] [-C dir] [-- claude args]	Claude Code in the profile (-n = new terminal tab/window; Windows Terminal tabs get the profile color; --here = this terminal even if Settings say new window)
claude-<profile> [args]	Same as cswitch code <profile> — installed commands
cswitch desktop [profile] [--all|--stop|--restart]	Start / focus / stop Claude Desktop per profile
cswitch login [profile] [--code|--desktop]	Guided sign-in with account verification
cswitch logout [profile] [--code|--desktop]	Sign out (Desktop: wipes that profile's Desktop data)
cswitch status [--json]	Accounts, running instances, sign-in browsers
cswitch profile [list|add|edit|show|rename|default|remove|open]	Manage profiles (menu when no action)
cswitch copy [--from p|system] [--to p]	Copy settings, CLAUDE.md, agents, commands, skills, MCP servers… (never credentials)
cswitch shell [profile]	Sub-shell where plain claude runs as the profile
cswitch env [profile] [--shell powershell|bash|zsh|fish|cmd]	Print the profile environment
cswitch doctor [--fix] [--test-router]	Check everything, explain fixes, repair (exits 1 when it finds problems)
cswitch router [status|register|unregister|test|settings|arm|disarm]	The claude:// link router
cswitch install / cswitch uninstall [--purge]	Integrations on / off
cswitch config [path|show|edit|theme]	Settings menu, themes (claude, ocean, matrix, dusk, light)
cswitch completions <shell>	Shell completions

How sign-in routing works

Claude Code. cswitch login work runs claude auth login --sso --email you@company.com (method and email come from the profile) with CLAUDE_CONFIG_DIR set to the profile and BROWSER set to Claude Switch. Claude Code hands the sign-in URL to $BROWSER; Claude Switch opens it in the profile's browser:

• a browser profile you pick (Chrome/Edge/Brave/Vivaldi/Chromium profiles are listed with their signed-in email; Firefox profiles by name),
• a sandbox — a separate browser profile owned by Claude Switch, used for nothing else (recommended: it can never pick up the other account's session),
• a private / InPrivate window, the system browser, or any custom command ({url} placeholder).

The callback returns to the right claude process because each one listens on its own localhost port. Afterwards Claude Switch reads the signed-in account and flags it if it does not match the profile's email.

Claude Desktop (Windows / Linux). cswitch login work arms the router for ~10 minutes and opens Work's Desktop. Sign in there; when the browser hands back claude://login/google-auth?…, claude://claude.ai/sso-callback?… or a magic link, Windows runs Claude Switch, which relaunches Claude with Work's --user-data-dir and the link as the last argument — Electron passes it to the already-running Work window. Without an armed sign-in, a link goes to the only running profile, or you are asked (configurable: ask / last launched / default profile).

Claude Desktop (macOS). macOS delivers links to the running Claude, so cswitch login briefly closes the other Claude windows while one profile signs in and reopens them afterwards.

Profiles and storage

~/.cswitch/
  config.toml                   settings + profiles (edit by menu or by hand)
  bin/                          cswitch, cswitchw.exe (no-console helper), claude-<profile>
  profiles/<name>/code/         CLAUDE_CONFIG_DIR: settings, history, MCP, credentials
  profiles/<name>/desktop/      Claude Desktop data: session, cookies, claude_desktop_config.json
  profiles/<name>/browser/      sandbox browser profile for sign-in pages
  state/                        router state, caches, cswitch.log

Data lives under your home folder rather than AppData on purpose: Microsoft Store apps get AppData writes redirected into a private package folder.

Each product in a profile can use isolated storage (default), the system location (~/.claude, Claude Desktop's original folder — keeps an existing sign-in; one profile at a time) or a custom folder.

Example config.toml:

default_profile = "work"
theme = "claude"

[settings]
deep_link_policy = "ask"          # ask | last-launched | default-profile
login_window_minutes = 10
env_isolation = "strict"          # strict | standard | off
env_passthrough = ["CLAUDE_CODE_GIT_BASH_PATH"]
code_launch = "here"              # here | new-window

[desktop]
launch_method = "auto"            # auto | direct | activate (Store apps)
router_enabled = true

[profiles.work]
label = "Work"
color = "#3B82F6"
email = "samrand@company.com"
login = "sso"                     # claude-ai | sso | console
code_storage = "isolated"         # isolated | system | C:\path
desktop_storage = "isolated"
desktop_shares_code = true        # Desktop's Code tab uses the profile's Claude Code data

[profiles.work.browser]
kind = "edge"                     # system | chrome | edge | brave | vivaldi | chromium | firefox | custom
mode = "profile"                  # profile | sandbox | private
profile = "Profile 1"

[profiles.work.env]
ANTHROPIC_MODEL = "claude-opus-5-5"

[profiles.personal]
label = "Personal"
color = "#D97757"
code_storage = "system"           # keep using the existing ~/.claude

[profiles.personal.browser]
kind = "chrome"
mode = "sandbox"

Platform notes

• Windows Store (MSIX) Claude Desktop is detected through Get-AppxPackage. Isolated profiles start the app's executable directly (so per-profile environment variables apply); if Windows refuses, Claude Switch falls back to package activation automatically. A profile on the system storage always uses package activation so it sees the app's private data. Override in Settings → Desktop launch method.
• Classic installer (%LOCALAPPDATA%\AnthropicClaude) is detected too.
• cswitchw.exe is a GUI-subsystem copy of cswitch.exe (made at install time) used for links and sign-in pages, so no console window ever flashes.
• Two Desktop windows look identical — the Start-menu entries "Claude Desktop (Work)" / "(Personal)" get profile-colored icons, and cswitch status shows what is running.
• Linux: works with community Claude Desktop builds (claude-desktop); the router registers via xdg-mime; the "which profile?" prompt uses zenity/kdialog when available.
• Organization managed settings (managed-settings.json) apply to every profile by design; cswitch doctor points them out.

Troubleshooting

Run cswitch doctor first — it checks the install, PATH, Claude Code, inherited variables, Claude Desktop detection, the link router, each profile's sign-in and browser, and storage conflicts, and prints the exact fix. cswitch doctor --fix repairs what it can.

• Desktop sign-in opened the other window → cswitch router test. On Windows, choose "Claude Switch" for CLAUDE links in Settings → Default apps (cswitch router settings).
• Sign-in page opened in the wrong browser account → cswitch profile edit <name> → Sign-in browser → Sandbox.
• Signed in to the wrong account → cswitch logout <name> --code, then cswitch login <name>.
• Logs: ~/.cswitch/state/cswitch.log (sign-in codes are redacted).

Uninstall

cswitch uninstall           # restores the claude:// handler, removes PATH entry, shortcuts, binaries
cswitch uninstall --purge   # …and deletes every profile's data

Without a terminal attached (scripts, CI) add --yes; destructive commands never run unattended without it.

If you used an installer, also remove the package itself:

Installed with	Remove with
Windows setup .exe	Settings → Apps → Claude Switch → Uninstall (runs cswitch uninstall for you)
macOS .pkg	cswitch uninstall, then sudo /usr/local/claude-switch/uninstall.sh
.deb / .rpm / .apk / Arch	cswitch uninstall, then sudo apt remove claude-switch (or dnf remove, apk del, pacman -R)

Development

cargo fmt
cargo clippy --all-targets -- -D warnings
cargo test

See ARCHITECTURE.md for the module layout.

License

MIT