Claude profiles

If you use more than one Claude account, such as a personal plan and a work one, profiles let you use them side by side in one app. A Claude profile is one Claude Code config folder with its own login, settings, plugins and sessions. Add a profile for each account you use, and Switchboard lists all their sessions together, shows which account each one runs on, and keeps their usage apart.

Open it

• Press Command, Comma⌘,Control, CommaCtrl, and choose Claude profiles.
• Or run Settings in the command palette (Command, K or Command, Shift, P⌘Kor⌘⇧PControl, K or Control, Shift, PCtrlKorCtrlShiftP), then Settings: Claude profiles.

How profiles work

Your first profile is Claude Code’s own folder, usually ~/.claude%USERPROFILE%\.claude. Every other profile is a folder of its own, such as ~/.claude-work%USERPROFILE%\.claude-work, the same folder you would point CLAUDE_CONFIG_DIR at in a terminal.

Switchboard never handles your login. You sign in with Claude Code itself, once per folder, and Switchboard runs Claude Code with that folder for the sessions of that profile.

Add a profile

1. Click Add profile.
2. Give it a name and pick a colour.
3. Check the Config folder. Switchboard suggests one in your home folder from the name (.claude-work for “Work”); type another path or click Choose…. A folder that doesn’t exist yet is created. To see the sessions of a folder you already use with CLAUDE_CONFIG_DIR, pick that folder.
4. Leave Sign in now on to sign in right after, in Switchboard’s terminal. See Sign in.
5. Click Add profile.

Sign in

A profile that isn’t signed in yet says Not signed in yet, with a Sign in button:

1. Click Sign in. Switchboard’s terminal opens next to Settings, with Claude Code running on the profile’s folder.
2. Follow Claude Code’s steps to sign in with the other account. If it doesn’t ask, type /login.

When you add a profile with Sign in now on, this happens by itself, unless the folder you picked is signed in already.

Once you’re signed in, the profile shows Signed in as with the account’s email (and its organisation, if it has one). Close the terminal tab when you’re done.

Sign in from your own terminal

Under Sign in, the profile also shows the command to run in a terminal of your own, with a copy button. Run it in TerminalPowerShell, then type /login. On a Mac that is, for example, CLAUDE_CONFIG_DIR=~/.claude-work claude. On Windows, see Sign in on Windows.

Sign in on Windows

Sign in works the same on Windows. The command Settings shows for your own terminal is in the form a Mac terminal understands (CLAUDE_CONFIG_DIR=… claude), on Windows too. PowerShell doesn’t run that form. Set the variable first, then start Claude Code, using the folder Settings shows:

$env:CLAUDE_CONFIG_DIR = "$HOME\.claude-work"
claude

The variable stays set in that PowerShell window only. Close it when you’re done, so a later claude there doesn’t use the other account by mistake.

How to set up another profile

Under the list, How to set up another profile walks through it step by step: create the folder and sign in, add it in Switchboard, link your projects, and optionally add a terminal alias such as alias claude-work='CLAUDE_CONFIG_DIR=~/.claude-work claude' to ~/.zshrc.

The guide’s steps are written for a Mac terminal. In PowerShell, use the commands from Sign in on Windows. For a shortcut, add a function such as function claude-work { $env:CLAUDE_CONFIG_DIR = "$HOME\.claude-work"; claude @args; Remove-Item Env:CLAUDE_CONFIG_DIR } to your PowerShell profile (notepad $PROFILE).

Choose the default profile

Choose Default on a profile. Projects that don’t have a profile of their own use the default.

Link a project to a profile

With more than one profile, you can link a project to the account its sessions should use:

• On the project’s page, open the Settings tab and pick a Claude profile. See Project settings.
• Or open the project’s menu in the sidebar’s project list: Claude profile lists Default and each profile.

New sessions in that project use the linked profile. Other projects use the default.

Defaults for new sessions

Each profile can have its own defaults for new sessions, such as Opus and Plan mode for a work account. Open New session defaults on the profile; the closed line shows a summary (“Opus · high effort”), or Global defaults when none are set.

Row	Choices
Model	A model, Auto, or Global default. Next to it, an effort level, or Global effort.
Permissions	A permission mode, or Global default.
Workspace	Current folder, New worktree, or Global default. Next to it, what a new worktree branches from.

Every change saves at once. A new session takes each field from the first place that sets it:

1. The project’s own defaults, on its Settings tab.
2. The defaults of the session’s profile.
3. The choices you made last in New session. For the permission mode, the one set in Settings → General comes before that, when there is one.

A branch to check out is only a project default, since branches belong to a repository. When you pick another profile for one session in New session, its defaults apply, unless you already changed something there.

Pick a profile for one session

In New session, the profile chip under the message box shows the profile the folder uses. Click it to pick another account for this one session. A running session keeps its profile; to use another account, start a new session.

See which account a session uses

With more than one profile:

• The rail on each session row in the sidebar shows the profile’s colour, on every row. Hover a row to see the profile’s name.
• The usage band under the message box shows the limits of the session’s account. Click it to open the Usage view for that account.
• Home has a Profiles section with a card per profile: its name, the account’s email, what its sessions are doing (“1 needs you · 2 working · 5 today”) and its plan usage, with when each limit resets.

Rename, recolour or remove a profile

• Type a new name in the profile’s name field, and pick another colour from its swatches.
• × removes a profile from Switchboard after you confirm. Its sessions leave the sidebar and its projects use the default profile again. The folder, its login and its sessions stay on disk; add the folder again to get them back. Claude Code’s own folder can’t be removed.

A profile whose folder is gone says folder not found.

Settings

Profiles and their defaults for new sessions are managed in Settings → Claude profiles. The link between a project and a profile is part of the project, in its Settings tab.

Related

• UsageSee what is left of your plan, when it comes back, and which sessions, projects and models used your tokens.
• Project settingsThe Claude profile and the choices new sessions in a project start with, and its name and icon in Switchboard.
• Model, effort and modeThe chips under the message box that set the profile, model, effort and permission mode of a session.
• Personal memoryOne folder of memory about you that loads in every project, with any Claude profile, and can sync to your other computers.