Cleanest way to open multiple instances of the same app at the same time

[danqi]

I am managing multiple Discord accounts that I would like to have open at the same time. I know that Discord has been supporting account switching for a while now, but it a bit clunky and slow.

What is the simplest and most robust way of having multiple instances of Discord open at the same time, each with a different account?

Different browsers? Or is there a way to run multiple instances of the app without running into any problems down the line?

 

[MacGizmo]

Have you tried simply duplicating the Discord app in your Applications folder and naming them Discord1.app and Discord2.app (then logging in to the different accounts in the separate apps)?

This works for a lot of apps.

 

[danqi]

Have you tried simply duplicating the Discord app in your Applications folder and naming them Discord1.app and Discord2.app (then logging in to the different accounts in the separate apps)?

This works for a lot of apps.

I have not. Mostly because I thought that would lead to problems with preferences and such. I was afraid to corrupt anything.

 

[chabig]

Macs don’t generally support multiple instances very well. I too would be concerned about your preference issue. You could consider running another copy in a virtual MacOS.

 

[chown33]

Maybe another Mac user account.

Add a user or group on Mac

On your Mac, add accounts for users and groups.

support.apple.com

 

[danqi]

Maybe another Mac user account.

Add a user or group on Mac

On your Mac, add accounts for users and groups.

support.apple.com

but that wouldn't allow for both instances to be open at the same time, right?

 

[danqi]

Macs don’t generally support multiple instances very well. I too would be concerned about your preference issue. You could consider running another copy in a virtual MacOS.

I've never done that. Do you have any tips / resources regarding that?

 

[chown33]

but that wouldn't allow for both instances to be open at the same time, right?

Switch quickly between users on Mac

If your Mac has multiple users, turn on fast user switching to quickly switch between accounts.

support.apple.com

 

[jdb8167]

I've never done that. Do you have any tips / resources regarding that?

Try here: Virtualization on Apple Silicon

 

[Boyd01]

Different browsers? Or is there a way to run multiple instances of the app without running into any problems down the line?

Sorry to admit that I know absolutely nothing about discord. Is it a website/web app, as your post suggests? If so, then different browsers should work. Each browser has its own storage, so there wouldn't be any issues with the preferences or other data that it stores.

Otherwise, a virtual machine would work. If you're using an Intel Mac, you could use a MacOS VM.

 

[Tagbert]

I am managing multiple Discord accounts that I would like to have open at the same time. I know that Discord has been supporting account switching for a while now, but it a bit clunky and slow.

What is the simplest and most robust way of having multiple instances of Discord open at the same time, each with a different account?

Different browsers? Or is there a way to run multiple instances of the app without running into any problems down the line?

Try using Terminal to open a second instance.

open -n /Applications/appname.app

 

[bogdanw]

Try using Terminal to open a second instance.

open -n /Applications/appname.app

While open -n could open a new instance of the app, I imagine they will have shared settings. I doubt two instances will be able to generate and use separate cookies for authentication.
Probably the only viable option is to use multiple browsers.

 

[danqi]

Thanks for the info everybody! I will look into setting up a VM as I prefer the desktop app to the browser. But that also might be overkill and using multiple browsers might be the more reasonable approach.