Productivity August 18, 2026 • 4 min read

How I Use Multiple Claude Code Accounts on My Mac

Switch between work and personal Claude Code accounts on macOS without logging in and out every time. Here is the simple Zsh setup I use.

How I Use Multiple Claude Code Accounts on My Mac

If you use Claude Code for both your day job and personal projects, you’ve probably run into the account switching headache.

By default, Claude Code stores its authentication session and settings in a single directory in your home folder (~/.claude.json and ~/.claude). If your company provides a Claude seat or Anthropic API workspace, but you also have a personal Claude Pro or Max subscription for side projects, running /login back and forth every time you switch repositories gets old fast.

Luckily, Claude Code supports an environment variable called CLAUDE_CONFIG_DIR. With two directories and two Zsh aliases, you can run separate accounts side-by-side without them ever stepping on each other.

Here is how I set it up on macOS.

Step 1: Create isolated config directories

Create dedicated folders in your home directory for each profile:

mkdir -p ~/.claude-personal ~/.claude-work

Each folder will hold its own auth token, session history, and project preferences.

Step 2: Add aliases to ~/.zshrc

Open your Zsh profile in your text editor of choice:

nano ~/.zshrc

Add these two aliases to point CLAUDE_CONFIG_DIR to the respective directory:

# Claude Code multi-account profiles
alias claude-personal="CLAUDE_CONFIG_DIR=~/.claude-personal claude"
alias claude-work="CLAUDE_CONFIG_DIR=~/.claude-work claude"

Save the file and reload your shell configuration:

source ~/.zshrc

Because these are standard shell aliases, any extra flags you pass (like claude-work --dangerously-skip-permissions or claude-personal "explain this file") get forwarded directly to the underlying claude binary.

Step 3: Authenticate each profile once

Now authenticate both profiles once. They will stay logged in independently.

1. Log in to your personal account:

In your terminal, run:

claude-personal

Inside the Claude Code prompt, type:

/login

Complete the browser sign-in using your personal email or Anthropic account. Once done, exit the session (Ctrl+C or type /exit).

2. Log in to your work account:

Open a new terminal tab or window and run:

claude-work

Inside the prompt, type:

/login

Sign in with your company SSO or work email.

That’s it. From now on:

  • Use claude-personal when hacking on side projects.
  • Use claude-work when working inside your company repositories.

Useful extras

1. Verifying which account you are on

If you ever want to double-check which account is active in your current session, you can run /cost or /config inside the CLI, or inspect the stored config file directly:

cat ~/.claude-personal/.claude.json | grep -i email
cat ~/.claude-work/.claude.json | grep -i email

2. Auto-switching with direnv (Optional)

If you keep your code strictly organized into folders like ~/work/ and ~/personal/, you can use direnv so you don’t even have to remember the alias name.

In your work project root, create a .envrc file:

export CLAUDE_CONFIG_DIR="$HOME/.claude-work"

Run direnv allow, and standard claude commands in that folder will automatically use your work profile.

Summary

Setting up multiple accounts takes less than two minutes:

  1. mkdir -p ~/.claude-personal ~/.claude-work
  2. Map CLAUDE_CONFIG_DIR in ~/.zshrc to distinct aliases.
  3. Run /login once on each alias.

No session overrides, no token conflicts, and clean separation between work billing and personal subscriptions.

← Back to Blog