Lock your Google Chrome profile with your Google password

Martin Brinkmann
Jul 17, 2014
Google Chrome
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9

Many computer systems are not overly well protected when someone else manages to get physical access to the computer. This can be a family member, a colleague at work, your boss, or a thief who just stole your laptop at Starbucks.

While user accounts are usually secured by a password, the computer may not always be locked which in turn means that a third-party can access most programs, files and information on it unhindered.

If you take web browsers for example, they are not protected by passwords. The only thing that you can do in most is to add password protection to authentication information, but that is about it.

Chrome just like Firefox supports profiles that you can create. They can be used by the same person, for instance to separate work and entertainment from one another, but also by different family members or work colleagues on the same system.

Google has added a feature to Chrome recently that allows you to lock down the browser using your Google password. While that may sound like a good idea, it has implications which you need to know about:

  1. Since you are linking your Google account to a profile, it is necessary to stay logged in whenever you use that profile in Chrome. This means that you are always signed in to Google when you use the feature.
  2. While you can lock your Chrome profile so that it cannot be accessed, you too cannot use Chrome at that time.
  3. You need to manually lock Chrome, there is no option to do this automatically (for instance when the computer goes to sleep or is turned off).

Set it up

chrome profile management

  • The feature is experimental at the time of writing which means that it may or may not be integrated natively in the browser.
  • Load chrome://flags/#enable-new-profile-management in the address bar and switch the preference to enabled. This enables the browser's new profile management.
  • Click on the restart button to apply the change and relaunch the browser.

You will see a profile menu at the top right corner of the screen on restart.

chrome lock profile

  • Here you need to sign-in to a Google account using your account credentials.
  • Once you have done so, you see your profile picture and name listed in the menu.
  • Here you also find the lock button which you can click on to lock down the browser.
  • This switches Chrome to the user manager window that displays options to sign in again, create a new account, or browse as guest.

chrome lock down screen

  • This page will remain until you sign in again or use one of the other options provided on the screen. It remains active when you close Chrome so that you can use it to lock down your browser profile completely using the feature.

Another interesting option that is provided by this new user management feature is the option to make available a guest browsing mode to others.

This is excellent news if you don't want third-parties to use your browser profile -- see open tabs, bookmarks, visited websites and more -- without switching to a different browser to provide them with that option.

Cut the link

You can cut the link at any time by open chrome://settings/ in the browser and clicking on the "disconnect your Google Account" option there.

To go back to the old profile manager, open the chrome://flags/#enable-new-profile-management preference again and set it to disabled. Restart the browser afterwards and the profile menu is gone from Chrome once again.

Summary
Lock your Google Chrome profile with your Google password
Article Name
Lock your Google Chrome profile with your Google password
Description
Find out how you can lock your Google Chrome profile using your Google Account password so that no one can access your tabs, history, bookmarks and passwords.
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Comments

  1. Mihai said on January 31, 2015 at 7:19 am
    Reply

    Anyone found any solution? I really need to lock Chrome without deleting every time my account so anyone can’t access my bookmarks with passwords!

    1. Nico said on February 2, 2015 at 12:30 pm
      Reply

      For the moment I’m using an Chrome extension called LOCKpw awaiting for the function to be restored.

      Nico

  2. Harald-René Flasch said on January 22, 2015 at 11:05 pm
    Reply

    WARNING These experimental features may change, break, or disappear at any time.

    Well this is true for chrome://flags/#enable-new-profile-management for me …..

    Any way to get it back? Disabled/Enabled again etc. nothing helped ..

  3. Harald-René Flasch said on January 21, 2015 at 11:31 pm
    Reply

    Used that for a while it worked fine but suddenly the “lock” feature has gone away/disappeared …(I am logged into my Google profile)

    1. Teja said on March 2, 2015 at 8:03 am
      Reply

      Same here. If someone find a solution, please reply in this thread. Thanks.

    2. Nico said on January 23, 2015 at 1:36 pm
      Reply

      Same, here lock button dissapeared, any solution?

      1. isma said on January 25, 2015 at 10:38 am
        Reply

        Same here. We all need Google to restore the Lock button.

  4. Janmejai said on December 17, 2014 at 9:20 am
    Reply

    Looks like this only works in windows.

  5. Alex said on October 4, 2014 at 12:08 am
    Reply

    It Should lock automatically when you close chrome or logout or lock Windows. :( Almost perfect!

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