You add your work account, then your personal one, then a client's — and suddenly Gmail bumps you out of the first one and asks you to sign in again. Repeat all day. The good news: this isn't a bug in your setup, it's how Gmail's built-in switcher works. Once you understand the real cause, the fix is simple. Here's why it happens and how to stay signed in to every account at once on a Mac.
Why does Gmail keep logging me out of other accounts?
Because all of your accounts share one browser session. Gmail's account switcher (the avatar in the top-right corner) doesn't give each account its own sealed login — it layers them on top of a single set of cookies. So when Google runs a routine security re-check, or you sign in fresh somewhere, that one shared session gets reset and the other accounts get knocked out along with it. It looks random, but it's the predictable result of stacking many logins on one session.
The core problem isn't Gmail — it's the shared session. Fix the isolation and the logging-out stops.
Can I stay signed in to two (or more) Google accounts at once?
Yes — as long as each account gets its own isolated session instead of sharing one. The moment two accounts live in separate sealed rooms, a re-check on one can't reach the other, so neither bumps the other out. That's the whole trick. Gmail's switcher fails at it because it was built to layer accounts, not to isolate them; the fix is to stop sharing the session in the first place.
How do I open multiple Google accounts on my MacBook?
You have a few options on a Mac, and they differ mostly in how well they isolate each account:
- Chrome profiles — each profile is its own sealed session, so this actually works. The catch is every profile opens a separate Chrome window, and past three or four accounts you're hunting through window sprawl all day.
- Gmail's account switcher — convenient for two accounts, but it shares one session, so it's exactly what causes the logout problem above.
- A dedicated multi-account app — keeps every account isolated and in one window, so you get the isolation of profiles without the window juggling.
The fix: isolated sessions, one window
This is the part that solves it for good. The best multi-account client for a Mac is a native app called Orbit, built around one idea: give every Google account its own isolated session, with its own cookies sealed off from the others, all inside a single window. Because the sessions never touch, a security re-check on one account can't log any of the others out.
Orbit runs as many Google accounts as you want, each completely isolated, and you switch between them with ⌘1–9. It loads the real Gmail, Calendar, Drive, Meet, and Gemini — not stripped-down copies — in a 12 MB native Mac app that uses macOS's own WebKit engine instead of bundling a browser. It's a one-time purchase (launch $19, standard $89), not a subscription, with a free 14-day trial and no card required. It runs on macOS 14+ on Apple silicon, and your data stays on-device — there's no server in the middle.
In other words: the same isolation that Chrome profiles give you, minus the window-hunting, plus a keystroke to move between accounts. The logging-out simply stops happening, because no two accounts ever share a session again.
Orbit is live and available to download today.