Can I run multiple versions of Google Chrome on the same machine Mac or Windows

Question

This fabulous answer suggests there   s no way to run multiple versions of Google Chrome on one machine   Every now and then you   ll get a website user stuck on an old version of Chrome  no idea how  but it happens     maybe they installed the standalone version   with an issue  and you need to be able to verify it  Bit difficult to do that without their browser version around   Does anyone know if there   s actually a way to do this  I e    Obtain an installer for an older version of Google Chrome  Google seems to keep very quiet about versions  which is great for users  less great for developers trying to support old versions  Run two versions of Google Chrome on one machine

User · Answer

Though this seems to be an old question with many answers I'm posting another one, because it provides information about another approaches (looking more convenient than already mentioned), and the question itself remains actual.

First, there is a blogpost Running multiple versions of Google Chrome on Windows. It describes a method which works, but has 2 drawbacks:

you can't run Chrome instances of different versions simultaneously;
from time to time, Chrome changes format of its profile, and as long as 2 versions installed by this method share the same directory with profiles, this may produce a problem if it's happened to test 2 versions with incompatible profile formats;

Second method is a preferred one, which I'm currently using. It relies on portable versions of Chrome, which become available for every stable release at the portableapps.com.

The only requirement of this method is that existing Chrome version should not run during installation of a next version. Of course, each version must be installed in a separate directory. This way, after installation, you can run Chromes of different versions in parallel. Of course, there is a drawback in this method as well:

profiles in all versions live separately, so if you need to setup a profile in a specific way, you should do it twice or more times, according to the number of different Chrome versions you have installed.

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For those who don t care if it s  Google Chrome   I suggest using  Chromium  instead   See  Download Chromium        Look in http   googlechromereleases blogspot com search label Stable 20updates for the last time  44   was mentioned    Loop up that version history   44 0 2403 157   in the Position Lookup   In this case it returns a base position of  330231   This is the commit of where the 44 release was branched  back in May 2015     Open the continuous builds archive   Click through on your platform  Linux Mac Win    Paste  330231  into the filter field at the top and wait for all the results to XHR in     Eventually I get a perfect hit  https   commondatastorage googleapis com chromium-browser-snapshots index html prefix Mac 330231           Sometimes you may have to decrement the commit number until you find one       Download and run

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A small virtual machine maybe   Try VirtualBox a freeware program to install virtual machines  a lot of work for what you want to do  but it ll work

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In the comments  I mentioned a step-by-step method to easily install multiple Chrome versions  side-by-side  This answer quotes my original answer  and includes a script which does the job for you      Quoted from  section 7 of Cross-browser testing  All major browsers on ONE machine       Chrome  Stand-alone installers can be downloaded from File Hippo    It is also possible to run multiple Chrome versions   side-by-side       Although Sandboxie can be used  it s   recommended to use the next native method in order to run multiple   versions side-by-side          Download the desired version s  from File Hippo    Create a main directory  e g  C  Chrome     Extract the installer   without installing   using 7-Zip for example     After extracting  a chrome 7z archive is   created  Also extract this file  and descend the created Chrome-bin   directory     Now  you see chrome exe and a dir like 18 0 1025 45    Move chrome exe to 18 0 1025 45  then move this directory to   C  Chrome  The remaining files in Chrome-bin can safely be   deleted    Create a shortcut for each version    C  Chrome 18 0 1024 45 chrome exe  --user-data-dir     User Data 18  --chrome-version 18 0 1025 45       Explanation of this shortcut           C  Chrome 18 0 1024 45 chrome exe   bull  This is the   launcher   --user-data-dir     User Data 18    bull  User profile  relative to the location of chrome exe  You could also have   used --user-data-dir  C  Chrome User Data 18  for the same effect    Set your preferences for the lowest Chrome version  and duplicate the User profile for each Chrome version  Older Chrome versions   refuse to use User profiles from new versions    --chrome-version 18 0 1025 45  bull  Location of binaries          The location  eg 18 0 1025 45  must be the name of the directory    Must start and end with a number  A dot may appear in between    The numbers do not necessarily have to match the real version number  though it s convenient to use real version numbers                    Regarding configuration  All preferences can be set at   chrome   settings   I usually change the home page and  Under the   hood  settings          Disable auto-updates  http   dev chromium org administrators turning-off-auto-updates       the old version of this answer referred to Old Apps for old Chrome versions  but they do not offer direct download links any more through the UI  The files do still exist  I ve created a shell script  bash  to ease the creation of a local repository of Chrome versions - see https   gist github com Rob--W 8577499   VB Script which automates install  config  amp  launch  I ve created a VB script which installs and configures Chrome  tested in XP and Win 7   Launch the script  and a file dialog appears  or  Drag  amp  drop the chrome installer on the VBS   Select the destination of the Chrome installer  and the script automatically unpacks the files and duplicates the profile from a pre-configured base directory   By default    The Chrome binaries are placed in subfolders of C  Chrome   The User profiles are created in C  Chrome User Data   The user profiles will be duplicated from the directory as specified in the sFolderChromeUserDataDefault variable  which is C  Chrome User Data 2  by default  After the first Chrome installation  set your preferences  Home page  bookmarks       Then modify the variable  see 3   in the source code  After that  installing and configuring Chrome is as easy as pie    The only dependency is 7-zip  expected to be located at C  Program Files 7-zip 7z exe

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I think I might have figured this out on Windows  You can run different versions of Chrome at the same time   Do the following    Copy over the version number directory into the usual c  users yourUser appdata local google chrome application directory  I am assuming you had a backup of the older chrome version directory before the update occurred  Copy over the chrome exe from the older version as a new name such as chrome custom exe Run chrome as chrome custom exe --chrome-version olderVersion --user-data-dir newDir   That s it  I use this method to run automated test on Chrome with Selenium  until selenium catches up and works well with the latest Chrome

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I ve recently stumbled upon the following solution to this problem   Source  Multiple versions of Chrome        this is registry data problem  How to do it then  this is an example for 2 0 172 39 and 3 0 197 11  I ll try it with next versions as they will come  let s assume I ve started with Chrome 2           Install Chrome 2  you ll find it Application Data folder  since I m from Czech Republic and my name is Bronislav Klucka the path looks like this   C  Documents and Settings Bronislav Klucka Local Settings Data aplikac   Google Chrome       and run Chrome   Open registry and save   HKEY CURRENT USER Software Google Update Clients  8A69D345-D564-463c-AFF1-A69D9E530F96    HKEY CURRENT USER Software Google Update ClientState  8A69D345-D564-463c-AFF1-A69D9E530F96         keys  put them into one chrome2 reg file and copy this file next to chrome exe  ChromeDir Application    Rename Chrome folder to something else  e g  Chrome2    Install Chrome 3  it will install to Chrome folder again and run Chrome   Save the same keys  there are changes due to different version  and save it to the chrome3 reg file next to chrome exe file of this new version again   Rename the folder again  e g  Chrome3       the result would be that there is no Chrome dir  only Chrome2 and Chrome3    Go to the Application folder of Chrome2  create chrome bat file with this content    echo off regedit  S chrome2 reg START chrome exe -user-data-dir  C  Docume 1 Bronis 1 LocalS 1 Dataap 1 Google Chrome2 User Data  rem START chrome exe -user-data-dir  C  Documents and Settings Bronislav Klucka Local Settings Data aplikac   Google Chrome2 User Data        the first line is generic batch command  the second line will update registry with the content of chrome2 reg file  the third lines starts Chrome pointing to passed directory  the 4th line is commented and will not be run       Notice short name format passed as -user-data-dir parameter  the full path is at the 4th line   the problem is that Chrome using this parameter has a problem with diacritics  Czech characters    Do 7  again for Chrome 3  update paths and reg file name in bat file for Chrome 3         Try running both bat files  seems to be working  both versions of Chrome are running simultaneously       Updating    Running  About  dialog displays correct version  but an error while checking for new one  To correct that do  I ll explain form Chrome2 folder     1  rename Chrome2 to Chrome   2  Go to Chrome Application folder   3  run chrome2 reg file    4  run chrome exe    works the same for Chrome3    now the version checking works  There has been no new version of Chrome since I ve find this whole solution up  But I assume that update will be downloaded to this folder so all you need to do is to update reg file after update and rename Chrome folder back to Chrome2  I ll update this post after successful Chrome update       Bronislav Klucka

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Your mileage may vary  mine sure did   but here s what worked for me  current version of Chrome as of this post is 33 x  and I was interested in 24 x    Visit the Chromium repo proxy lookup site  http   omahaproxy appspot com  In the little box called  Revision Lookup  type in the version number  This will translate it to a Subversion revision number  Keep that number in mind  Visit the build repository  http   commondatastorage googleapis com chromium-browser-snapshots index html Select the folder corresponding to the OS you re interested in  I have Win x64  but had to use Win because there was no x64 build corresponding to the version I was looking for   If you select Win  you could be in for a wait - as some of the pages have a lot of entries  Once the page loads  scroll to the folder containing the revision number you identified in an earlier step  If you don t find one  choose the next one up  This is a bit of trial and error to be honest - I had to back up about 50 revisions until I found a version close to the one I was looking for Drill into that folder and download  on the Win version  chrome-win32 zip  That s all you need  Unzip that file and then run chrome exe   This worked for me and I m running the latest Chrome alongside version 25  without problems  some profile issues on the older version  but that s neither here nor there   Didn t need to do anything else   Again  YMMV  but try this solution first since it requires the least amount of tomfoolery

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As professional testers  my friends use Spoon net browsers section to test compatibility of site in various browsers  Hope this should help you

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I have done the following on a Citrix XenDesktop VM  however you could just do this on your local PC   Microsoft Virtual PC  If you are running Windows 7  you can download Microsoft virtual PC and create as many copies of Virtual PC as you need for testing without any licensing issues    http   www microsoft com windows virtual-pc default aspx   This requires no additional Windows licenses  you simply set up multiple machines with different browsers on them  You can run the browsers out of the window by following the tutorial available here     http   ieblog members winisp net images InstallingXPMode htm   Installing Browsers  You will need to create at least 3 virtual PC s  tip  keep the memory down to 256mb for each virtual PC to avoid wasting memory on the virtual desktops    On the first VPC I installed this    http   tredosoft com Multiple IE    along with Chrome 1  Safari 3 1  Opera 8   On the second I installed Internet Explorer 7  Chrome 3  Safari 3 2 1  Opera 9   On the third I installed Internet Explorer 8  Chrome 8  Safari 4 0 5  Opera 10   On Windows 7  native machine  I had Internet Explorer 9  Chrome 11  Safari 5  Opera 11 and for Firefox I install the following app natively too    http   utilu com UtiluMFC    Personally I would not go back further than 5 years with compatibility  other than IE for government networks  unless you have a specific requirement  I split Chrome  amp  Opera across years as I decided there were just to many releases   However  if you find that someone has a specific issue with a site using a specific version of the browser it becomes very easy to install additional virtual machines to run additional browser versions   Obtaining Older Browsers  You can download older versions of Chrome from here    http   www oldapps com google chrome php   and Opera here    http   www oldapps com opera php   Virtualizing The Test Platform  Optional   I use Xen Desktop to virtualize the testing platform so that I can use it anywhere and have included my favorite development tools on there as well    http   deliver citrix com go citrix XenDesktop   The express edition is available for free   A Good Commercial Alternative  Another great product I recently came accross is Stylizer which is a CSS editor that installs multiple versions of browsers for testing purposes  however this is a commercial paid for product but is very good and worth the small fee they require to run it

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Oldapps com has old versions of Chrome available for download  and they   re the standalone versions  so combined with  SamMeiers    answer  these work a treat   The Google Chrome support forum has some good discussion of getting old versions of Chrome

User · Answer

I adopted  RobW s nice answer to get it working on Mac OS X 10 8  Other versions of Mac OS X may probably work too  The little extra work is actually only needed to keep your original Google Chrome user settings and the old version separated   Download another version of Google Chrome  like the Dev channel and extract the  app file   optional  Rename it to Google Chrome X app     if not already different from Google Chrome app     Be sure to replace X for all following steps with the actual version of Chrome you just downloaded    Move Google Chrome X app to  Applications without overwritting your current Chrome  Open the Terminal  create a shell script and make your script executable  cd  Applications touch google-chrome-version-start sh chmod  x google-chrome-version-start sh nano google-chrome-version-start sh   Modify the following code according to the version you downloaded and paste it into the script    usr bin env bash  Applications Google  Chrome  X app Contents MacOS Google  Chrome  X --user-data-dir  quot tmp Google Chrome X  quot   amp  disown  For example for Dev Channel     usr bin env bash  Applications Google  Chrome  Dev app Contents MacOS Google  Chrome  Dev --user-data-dir  quot tmp Google Chrome Dev  quot   amp  disown   This will store Chrome s data at   tmp Google Chrome VERSION   For more explanations see the original answer    Now execute the script and be happy   Application google-chrome-version-start sh    Tested it with Google Chrome 88 on a Mac running OS X 10 15 Catalina

[testing] Can I run multiple versions of Google Chrome on the same machine? (Mac or Windows)

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