open-chromium

Command line tools for opening URLs in Chromium-based browsers on macOS — picking a profile, an Edge workspace, or a specific window, and reusing an existing tab when one is already open.

open-chromium drives Microsoft Edge, Google Chrome, Chromium, and other Chromium variants via JXA, so it can do things open -a cannot: select a profile through the Profiles menu, target a window by title or by Edge workspace, and activate an already-open tab matching a URL. open-browser is a thin wrapper that picks the first installed candidate browser (Edge → Chrome → Chromium by default) and forwards to open-chromium. chromium-profile is a helper that resolves profile display names to on-disk directories and looks up Edge workspaces by name or UUID.

Installation

Drop the scripts somewhere on your PATH:

% git clone https://github.com/knu/open-chromium.git
% cp open-chromium/bin/* ~/bin/

Keep the three scripts (open-browser, open-chromium, chromium-profile) in the same directory so they can find each other.

Requirements

• macOS with at least one Chromium-based browser installed (Microsoft Edge, Google Chrome, Chromium, ...).
• jq on PATH — used by open-browser to read each browser's Local State. Install via brew install jq.
• Ruby — used by chromium-profile. The system Ruby works.
• leveldb — only needed when resolving Microsoft Edge workspaces by name. Install via brew install leveldb.
• macwin-cli — optional. When present, open-chromium uses it to raise a single window by title without disturbing the rest of the browser's window stack. Without it, the script falls back to raising the whole application.

Usage

% open-browser [-a APPS] [-p PROFILE] [-d PROFILE_DIR] [-w WINDOW] [-i] [-I] URL
% open-chromium [-a APP] [-p PROFILE] [-d PROFILE_DIR] [-w WINDOW] [-i] [-I] URL
% chromium-profile [-a APP] dir PROFILE_NAME
% chromium-profile [-a APP] [-p PROFILE_DIR] workspace (uuid NAME | name UUID | list)

Open a URL in the first installed browser (Edge, Chrome, then Chromium):

% open-browser https://example.com/

Pick a profile by its display name (as it appears in the browser's Profiles menu):

% open-browser -p Personal https://example.com/

Pick a profile by its on-disk directory (e.g. Default, Profile 2). -d wins over -p:

% open-browser -d "Profile 2" https://example.com/

Pick the browser explicitly. Multiple candidates can be given with :, tried in order:

% open-browser -a "Google Chrome:Microsoft Edge" https://example.com/

Activate (or open in) a window with a given title. Multiple candidates can be given with ::

% open-browser -w "Work" https://example.com/

For Microsoft Edge, -w also accepts a workspace UUID or workspace name. An already-open window matching the title is preferred; only if no such window is open is a workspace launch attempted:

% open-browser -a "Microsoft Edge" -p Work -w "Project Alpha" https://example.com/

Open in incognito mode:

% open-browser -i https://example.com/

Reuse an existing tab when the URL matches ignoring the query string:

% open-browser -I https://example.com/search?q=foo

If a tab for the URL is already open in any window of the chosen profile, that tab is activated instead of opening a new one. If a chrome://newtab/ or edge://newtab/ tab is open, it is reused. When the URL is omitted, open-chromium just raises the matching window.

chromium-profile

chromium-profile looks up Chromium browser metadata directly from Local State and (for Edge workspaces) the profile's Sync Data/LevelDB:

% chromium-profile -a "Microsoft Edge" dir Personal
Default
% chromium-profile -a "Microsoft Edge" -p Default workspace list
01234567-89ab-cdef-0123-456789abcdef	Project Alpha
...
% chromium-profile -a "Microsoft Edge" -p Default workspace uuid "Project Alpha"
01234567-89ab-cdef-0123-456789abcdef
% chromium-profile -a "Microsoft Edge" -p Default workspace name 01234567-89ab-cdef-0123-456789abcdef
Project Alpha

Exit status is 0 on a unique match, 1 on no match, 2 on ambiguous match, and 3 on a usage or runtime error.

Options

open-browser

• -a APPS — :-separated list of preferred browsers, tried in order; falls back to Microsoft Edge:Google Chrome:Chromium.
• -p PROFILE — :-separated list of profile display names (as shown in the Profiles menu).
• -d PROFILE_DIR — On-disk profile directory (e.g. Default, Profile 2). Wins over -p.
• -w WINDOW — :-separated list of window titles, or — for Microsoft Edge — workspace names or UUIDs.
• -i — Open in incognito mode.
• -I — Match tabs by URL ignoring the query string.

open-chromium

Same flags as open-browser, except -a takes a single application name.

chromium-profile

• -a APP — Browser app name (default: Microsoft Edge).
• -p PROFILE_DIR — Profile directory name (default: Default).

How it works

• Profile selection drives the browser's Profiles menu via System Events, so it works even when a browser does not expose --profile-directory on relaunch.
• When macwin-cli is available, the target window is raised by title without disturbing the rest of the application's window stack. Without it, open-chromium falls back to app-level activation.
• Edge workspaces are resolved from the profile's Sync Data/LevelDB. If Edge is running and holds the database lock, chromium-profile snapshots the LevelDB files to a temporary directory and opens that copy.

Author

Copyright (c) 2026 Akinori Musha.

Licensed under the MIT license. See LICENSE for details.

Visit the GitHub Repository for the latest information.