How to open new windows as separate application instances for Chrome, Terminal? Moving from Linux (OpenBox WM) to MBP, I'm struggling to recover the level of productivity I was used to... One specific thing that's killing it is OSX's insistence on separating between "applications" and "windows", assigning different key combos to toggling among either, each with its own rotation behavior (sigh). This gets even worse because OSX insists on bringing all the windows of application X to the front whenever I switch to it. I often run into situations where I have two or more Chrome windows and two or more Terminal windows, each group spanning the entire desktop space, but I cannot have one of each at the front at the same time.

Other constraints: I do not want to move windows to separate workspaces (or whatever that's called) just so I can work with them. I prefer not to use the mouse, but willing to do so if that'll solve my problem (it won't in the above case).

One thing that might solve my problem is being able to start new windows of the applications I care about (Chrome, Terminal) as separate instances. This will let me switch between them arbitrarily without forcing them all to the front.

Does anyone know of a way to do that in Yosemite? Much thanks!
You can try the following syntax using open command:

open -na "Google Chrome"


where -n parameters opens a new instance even if one is already running.

Adding extra --user-data-dir will start instance in the separate profile directory, e.g.

open -na "Google Chrome" --args --user-data-dir="$PWD/Foo"


And using --profile-directory you can change the default profile name.