A few years ago I came up with a work around to start Google Chrome in incognito mode. It worked fine until the next time that Google updated the app and reverted my changes. Eventually I grew tired of reinserting my fix. I actually had a shell script to do it for me when I noticed it stop working but it was just annoying.
So, version 2.0 of my Incognito startup has proven (so far) to be future proof with regards to what Google does and will continue to work until they remove the -incognito option from the binary.
So without further ado fire up Automator and let’s get started:
1 – Pretty boring, right?
2 – We’re going to create a new automator script that will be a standalone Application. Pick the circled image.
3 & 4 – Pick ‘Utilities’ on the leftmost column, then pick ‘Run Shell Script’ on the next column. Again, circled options.
5 – Automator will offer a default shell script “cat”, select and delete that.
6 & 7 – Copy this text into the shell script box:
open -n /Applications/Google\ Chrome.app –args -incognito
Hit the Run button in the corner to test. If you copied it correctly an incognito browser will appear when you hit Run.
8 & 9 – Save the document. I used Incognito.App as my choice.
– That’s pretty much it. Check that /Applications/Incognitor.app (or whatever you called it) is there and then start it like you do any other app.
Enjoy,
-Karl
