Chrome --user-data-dir not working properly?

So i wanted to pin different chrome instances to my taskbar. I've found this cmd line argument and I tried executing it:

"C:\Program Files (x86)\Google\Chrome\Application\chrome.exe" --user-data-dir="C:\Users\username\AppData\Local\Google\Chrome\User Data"

And It opened chrome with the default profile. I have another local profile for developing with different extensions etc. Its path is ..\Profile 1

"C:\Program Files (x86)\Google\Chrome\Application\chrome.exe" --user-data-dir="C:\Users\username\AppData\Local\Google\Chrome\User Data\Profile 1"

Weird thing, it opened a somewhat guest profile, with no ability to switch to other profiles. What's wrong?

Solution 1:

The User Data folder is the profile.

Copy the existing C:\Users\username\AppData\Local\Google\Chrome\User Data folder to something like C:\Users\username\ChromeProfiles\User Data (anywhere else on C:\ might cause Admin access issues).

Now make a new (or copy existing) taskbar shortcut and point its Target (including quotations) to "C:\Program Files (x86)\Google\Chrome\Application\chrome.exe" --user-data-dir="C:\Users\username\ChromeProfiles\User Data

I use this trick to move my profile to a RAM drive on bootup (obviously w/ different path structure) and it works like a charm.

Solution 2:

Instead of using --user-data-dir run Chrome with this parameter:

chrome.exe --profile-directory="Profile 1"