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Run two Zed instances on Mac
Zed keeps one settings profile and one signed-in account per install. A MacDupl instance is a second, genuinely separate Zed — its own settings, its own GitHub sign-in for collaboration and Zed AI, its own Dock icon — running at the same time as your first. It's on MacDupl's native tier, so it ships as Beta.
3-day free trial · $29 once · macOS 13+ · notarized by Apple
What you get
- Separate settings. Each instance keeps its own settings.json, keybindings and themes — a client's setup never leaks into your own.
- Separate sign-in. Zed's GitHub sign-in for collaboration and Zed AI is isolated per instance, so a client project can use a different account than your personal editor.
- Its own Dock icon. Colour-tinted, so a client's Zed and your own are one glance apart in the Dock.
- Nearly free on disk. Instances are APFS copy-on-write copies, sharing disk blocks with the original app.
Zed sits in MacDupl's native tier alongside our hands-on verified Telegram, Zoom, Tailscale, CapCut and Spotify clones — but Zed hasn't been through that pass itself, so it inherits the tier's “Beta” status rather than a verified one of its own. The free trial tells you how Zed classifies on your Mac in under a minute.
- Zed hasn't been through MacDupl's hands-on verification pass yet, so it carries the native tier's baseline Beta status rather than an app-specific verified one.
- The native tier isolates by giving each instance a separate user-level HOME, which is where Zed keeps its settings.json and sign-in state — not a shared folder swapped underneath one HOME.
How to set it up
- Pick the app
Open MacDupl and choose Zed from the list of apps installed on your Mac. - Name and colour it
Call it “Work”, “Personal” or a client's name, and give it one of nine icon tints. - Hit Create
About two seconds later there's a new Zed in your Dock — open its own settings and sign in separately for that project — configuration stays isolated from the original.
Questions about Zed
Why not just open a second Zed window?
A second window still shares one settings profile and one signed-in account. A MacDupl instance is a separate app with its own settings and its own sign-in, so a client's configuration never touches your personal editor.
Is Zed verified, or Beta because it's untested?
Both. Zed runs on MacDupl's native tier, which carries a Beta label as a whole, and it hasn't individually gone through our hands-on pass yet — so it gets exactly the status the tier default gives it, nothing more. The 3-day trial shows you how it behaves on your own Mac.
Do my extensions and themes carry over to a new instance?
An instance starts as a copy of your installed Zed, so whatever was configured at the moment you created it is there — set it up once for that project after that, independently of the original.
Does the App Store version work?
Zed doesn't ship through the Mac App Store — it's a direct download from zed.dev, and that's the build MacDupl clones.
Try it on your own Mac
The free trial classifies every app in your Applications folder instantly, so you can see exactly how Zed is handled before paying anything.