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.

1. 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)
2. Run two versions of Google Chrome on one machine

Rubellite

This is more of a question for SuperUser, since it is not really about programming. – Bugbee

@dreamlax: So websites aren’t programming? I want to run multiple Chromes for testing websites that I’ve written. It’s a very narrow definition of programming that doesn’t encompass that. – Rubellite

Your question is regarding the installation and/or configuration of software, not the development of software. – Bugbee

@dreamlax: software I’m installing and configuring to test software I’ve developed. You’d only want to do this whilst developing software. – Rubellite

Running multiple Chrome browsers is natively supported. A step-by-step guide is covered in Cross-browser testing: All major browsers on ONE machine; 7. Chrome. A brief summary: Download 7-zip, old versions from Old Apps. Then use 7-zip to extract the installer, twice. (...) Create a shortcut to the Chrome launcher with the following flags --user-data-dir=..., --chrome-version=.... – Lustihood

@RobW: nice one. That’s worth an answer, I’d say. – Rubellite

Looks like this question needs yet another answer... :/ Dammit Chrome! /me shakes fist – Pownall

@Metagrapher: yeah, I’m coming round to the idea that old versions of Chrome should be ignored, at least on the desktop where it relentlessly attempts to auto-update itself. It turns users with old versions into an edge case. – Rubellite

@PaulD.Waite yeah, I agree, they are edge cases. However, if I wasn't personally in that edge case (my machine behind this gov firewall can't update Chrome) then I would probably more agree with that they should be ignored. Sadly, knowing that my experience has been such, I have to imagine that normal users would have even more issues with auto-updating chrome in the same conditions. – Pownall

@Metagrapher: “normal users would have even more issues with auto-updating chrome” — well maybe. It depends what you mean by “normal”. Maybe for most Chrome users, Chrome auto-updates just fine. – Rubellite

@PaulD.Waite in my specific case, which I know probably doesn't apply to everyone, my client (and therefore the people doing acceptance testing) are behind government firewalls and are generally prevented from installing / updating programs w/o IT intervention. So, "normal" in this case means non-privileged users behind firewalls. Seems like it could be a gaping hole in user testing for Google to go this route. – Pownall

Also, especially in the context of Google's wide user base, the inverse selection of most users (that is, all the people who are not "most users") is still on the order of tens of thousands of people. When someone says "this only affects 1% of our users", but that's 1% of 1m users, well, that's still 10K people--still a very large audience to ignore. – Pownall

@Metagrapher: sure, if your audience is known to be on a specific old version of Chrome, fair enough. But even then, which is easier for them: you working round a given issue in an old version of Chrome, or their IT department rolling out a Chrome update? It might be the latter. They’re not exactly on the supported path for Chrome if they’re not okay with auto-updates. Maybe it’s not the browser for them. – Rubellite

For those who want to run different version of chrome using selenium e4example.blogspot.com/2017/07/… – Filigreed

Any solution regarding linux 64 bit – Monopolize

Answer 1

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.

1. Download the desired version(s) from File Hippo.

2. Create a main directory, e.g. C:\Chrome\.

3. 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.

4. 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" • This is the launcher

• --user-data-dir="..\User Data\18" • 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 • 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)

##VBScript which automates install, config & launch I've created a VBScript which installs and configures Chrome (tested in XP and Windows 7). Launch the script, and a file dialog appears (or: Drag & 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:

1. The Chrome binaries are placed in subfolders of C:\Chrome\.
2. The User profiles are created in C:\Chrome\User Data\.
3. 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.

Lustihood

This doesn't work anymore. Old Apps link says - "Google Chrome is no longer available to download on OldApps" – Affirmation

The same can now be downloaded from filehippo.com/download_google_chrome – Affirmation

@AnmolSaraf See updated answer. My original answer was updated to use File Hippo, but Old Apps does still host old versions (take a look at the new paragraph in my answer). – Lustihood

@RobW Thanks, this will be helpful for new users now. You were also very quick to update the answer, quick work :) – Affirmation

Sadly, attempting to extract Chrome 24 using 7Zip does NOT result in a chrome.7z archive but rather a binary file 102~ with which nothing can be done. I wonder whether you method only worked for older versions? - looks like Google changed the way their installer/downloader works. – Organza

@Tom Look in the linked Github gist for known-good paths to offline installers. Most recently used to get Chrome 33. – Lustihood

Each and every time that I try to download from File Hippo I get redirected and the current version of Chrome gets installed. Frustrating. – Dependable

@JayBlanchard Use the Github gist at gist.github.com/Rob--W/8577499 to get old versions from Old Apps. If you need a version not listed at Old Apps, just request a specific version via mail. I've got direct download URLs for almost every Chrome release since v23 (up to the latest beta, v36 at the moment). – Lustihood

UPDATE: Just tried running the dl-chrome.sh script (10/21/2014) on previous version numbers that I pulled from the Wikipedia article on release history and all return 404. I've tried versions as old as 18.0.1025.45 to recent versions like 35.0.1916 and 36.0.1985. All are returning 404. @RobW Do you (or anyone else) know of any other location to get the older Chrome binaries? – Kulda

@Kulda It seems that they're taken down, unfortunately. Which version do you want to have? From every major release, I have a copy of the official Windows release. From every release since v35, I've also got the file hash and the original download URL (but these URLs are no longer working, Google seems to disable previous URLs after releasing a new version). – Lustihood

The FileHippo links didn't work for me either, but I was able to get a similarly-aged version of Chromium by following the steps at superuser.com/questions/678008/…, and then setting up a shortcut as described in step #4 here. – Emylee

this worked for me with the installers available at download.oldapps.com/Chrome as given in the github gist – Barimah

Excellent! filehippo redirects to google now, so didn't work. I found the old chrome version installer at filepuma.com – Oxblood

As of Chrome 63, 7-zip can no longer extract the content of the stand-alone installer. – Givens

Answer 2

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.

1. Download another version of Google Chrome, like the Dev channel and extract the .app file

2. (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)

3. Move Google Chrome X.app to /Applications without overwritting your current Chrome

4. 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
   

5. 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="tmp/Google Chrome/X/" & disown
   

   For example for Dev Channel:

   #!/usr/bin/env bash
   /Applications/Google\ Chrome\ Dev.app/Contents/MacOS/Google\ Chrome\ Dev --user-data-dir="tmp/Google Chrome Dev/" & disown
   

   (This will store Chrome's data at ~/tmp/Google Chrome/VERSION/. For more explanations see the original answer.)

6. 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

Delmardelmer

Thanks! Apparently disabling auto-updates isn't required on Mac OS X - I was wondering why it wasn't in your answer :) – Scientific

To disable auto-updates on Mac, go to the file /Applications/Google\ Chrome\ VERSION.app/Contents/Info.plist and change the value of <key>KSUpdateURL</key> to <string>https://tools.google.com/abcdefg</string>. No other method worked for me (including setting defaults write com.google.Keystone.Agent checkInterval 0). – Headachy

Answer 3

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.

Organza

omahaproxy.appspot.com is not helpful in identifying old revision numbers, but with some trial and error it worked like charm! Thanks! – Terminate

Note, it wouldn't help you if you want to run say 20 http-poll websocket emulation connections, processing are running togather, max 6 browsers togather. – Forworn

work for me in 2022. I used omahaproxy.appspot.com to find related info about the version; 'Branch Base Position'. Then use it to filter in commondatastorage.googleapis.com/chromium-browser-snapshots/… – Genovera

Answer 4

For those who don't care if it's "Google Chrome", I suggest using "Chromium" instead.

See: Download Chromium

1. Look in http://googlechromereleases.blogspot.com/search/label/Stable%20updates for the last time "44." was mentioned.
2. Loop up that version history ("44.0.2403.157") in the Position Lookup
3. 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.*
4. Open the continuous builds archive
5. Click through on your platform (Linux/Mac/Win)
6. Paste "330231" into the filter field at the top and wait for all the results to XHR in.
7. Eventually I get a perfect hit: https://commondatastorage.googleapis.com/chromium-browser-snapshots/index.html?prefix=Mac/330231/
   1. Sometimes you may have to decrement the commit number until you find one.
8. Download and run!

Benbow

Is this still possible? I've searched all over the internet for this but every time I try to load anything from "commondatastorage.googleapis.com" nothing is there :/ – Ecotone

@Ecotone The blog site has been changed completely, but for now the download page is still there. – Benbow

Answer 5

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.

Cadel

I've used the second method (portableapps.com) and find it works well. – Nicolle

Answer 6

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)

Uranometry

Answer 7

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.

Kornegay

Sounds interesting, and more convenient than one user account for each version of Chrome. I’ll give it a try. – Rubellite

Answer 8

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

Seraph

Yeah, I’ve seen that site, looks good. Their “your browser is not supported” error page isn’t very helpful though, it just says “try another browser”. It doesn’t tell you which browsers they actually support. – Rubellite

This service is great on Windows, useless on other OSes. And they let you set up and account and download the whole VM before telling you this. – Twinberry

Answer 9

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 & 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.

Causalgia

I think Stack Overflow limits newer uses from posting links, to help avoid spam. Once you get some reputation points you’ll be able to post links freely; I’ve edited your answer to include the links in the meantime. Great answer! – Rubellite

Answer 10

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):

1. Install Chrome 2, you'll find it Application Data folder, since I'm from Czech Republic and my name is Bronislav Klučka the path looks like this:

   C:\Documents and Settings\Bronislav Klučka\Local Settings\Data aplikací\Google\Chrome
   

   and run Chrome

2. 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)

3. Rename Chrome folder to something else (e.g. Chrome2)

4. Install Chrome 3, it will install to Chrome folder again and run Chrome

5. 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

6. Rename the folder again (e.g. Chrome3)

   the result would be that there is no Chrome dir (only Chrome2 and Chrome3)

7. 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 Klučka\Local Settings\Data aplikací\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)

8. 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

Salts

Answer 11

I have tried the various way to test one of a scenario which was chrome browser specific issue.

Best Solution a/c to me: Use Portable Versions

Step-0: Uninstall your currently installed Google Chrome

• Go to Control Panel > Uninstall a program > Click Google Chrome > Uninstall

Step-1: Download the portable chrome version & Rename

• Download the portable version of your choice from Portable Older Chrome Versions and save it instead of running it directly.
• Go to downloaded file location and Rename the file to end with _online.paf.exe. Example:
• Rename from google-chrome-portable-96-0-4664-93.exe to google-chrome-portable-96-0-4664-93_online.paf.exe

Step-2: Install the portable version

• Click on the renamed exe file to continue with the installation.
• When asked for Destination Folder path -> Rename it to match version (just to avoid conflict with other versions and identify) as shown below.

Step-3: Finally Run the downloaded version:

• Go inside the portable installed folder and from there run GoogleChromePortable.exe like below.

Whoa!! This works. Thanks a lot to the creators of Portable Chrome Versions.

Carbide

Answer 12

Rob W answer works if you can extract chrome.7z from the installer file, Unfortunately, the installer file is not extractable anymore, but you can find chrome.7z file in this address if you have installed chrome and it updated itself:

C:\Program Files (x86)\Google\Chrome\Application\95.0.4638.54\Installer

Or search your hard disk for chrome.7z file to find where Google stores update files for your OS.
After extraction as Rob W mentioned go to extracted folder and run new chrome with command:

.\chrome.exe --user-data-dir=".\User Data" --chrome-version=95.0.4638.54

Jenine

Answer 13

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.

Rubellite