codexswitcher

Instantly switch between multiple Codex accounts — save, swap, and manage auth profiles.

Warning

Not affiliated with OpenAI or Codex. Not an official tool.

Codex stores your authentication session in a single ~/.codex/auth.json file. This file is shared by both the Codex CLI (codex) and the Codex desktop app (codex app). If you use separate personal and business accounts, moving between them means logging out and logging back in every time — in both the CLI and the app.

codexswitcher fixes that. It keeps named snapshots of your auth.json so you can switch between them instantly — no re-login required. A single switch updates auth for both the terminal and the desktop app.

Features

• Works with both CLI & app — one switch covers codex and codex app
• Instant switching — swap auth.json with one command
• Interactive picker — select from your saved accounts
• Atomic file operations — temp file + os.replace(), never a corrupt state
• Auto-backup — current auth backed up before every switch
• Hash-based detection — SHA-256 comparison identifies the active account
• Byte-perfect copies — original file format preserved exactly
• Secure permissions — chmod 600 enforced on all auth files
• Auto-migration — seamlessly upgrades data from older CodexSwitch installs

Requirements

• Python 3.12+
• uv (recommended) or pip

Don't have uv? Install it in one line:

# On macOS and Linux
curl -LsSf https://astral.sh/uv/install.sh | sh

# On Windows
powershell -ExecutionPolicy ByPass -c "irm https://astral.sh/uv/install.ps1 | iex"

# Or, from PyPI
pip install uv

Installation

# Clone and install as a global CLI tool
git clone https://github.com/MohamedMohana/CodexSwitcher.git
cd CodexSwitcher
uv tool install .

After this, codexswitcher is available everywhere.

Quick Start

There is no account limit — save as many as you need. The interactive picker lets you choose from all of them.

# 1. Log in and save each account (repeat for as many as you have)
codexswitcher login personal
codexswitcher login business
codexswitcher login client-acme
codexswitcher login client-globex

# 2. See all your saved accounts
codexswitcher list

# 3. Switch between them — directly by name or interactively
codexswitcher use personal          # direct
codexswitcher use                   # interactive picker (choose from table)

# 4. Check which one is active
codexswitcher current

Commands

codexswitcher login [name]

Log into a Codex account. Automatically kills any stale codex login process before starting, so you never get "port already in use" errors.

If you pass a name, it saves the account right after login. If you omit the name, it prompts you after a successful login.

# Login and save in one step
codexswitcher login personal

# Login first, then decide whether to save
codexswitcher login

This command:

1. Kills any lingering codex login server on port 1455
2. Runs codex login
3. Prompts you to save the new account (or saves automatically if you passed a name)

codexswitcher save <name>

Save the current ~/.codex/auth.json as a named profile.

codexswitcher save personal
codexswitcher save business
codexswitcher save client-project

Import from another file (e.g. a backup or an export from another machine) with --from:

codexswitcher save laptop-backup --from ~/Downloads/auth.json

When using --from, the imported snapshot is saved but the currently-active account pointer is left alone.

codexswitcher use [name]

Switch to a saved account. Pass the name directly, or omit it for an interactive picker.

# Switch directly
codexswitcher use personal

# Interactive picker — shows a table and prompts you
codexswitcher use

After switching, restart Codex if it is already running. This applies to both:

• The CLI (codex)
• The desktop app (codex app)

codexswitcher list

List all saved accounts. * marks the active one, ~ marks the recorded current when live auth differs.

codexswitcher list

┏━━━━━━━━━━┳━━━━━━━━━━━━━━┳━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━┓
┃ Status   ┃ Account      ┃ Auth Info                   ┃
┡━━━━━━━━━━╇━━━━━━━━━━━━━━╇━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━┩
│ * active │ personal     │ mode=chatgpt, id=9a86901f…  │
│          │ business     │ mode=chatgpt, id=7c3b2a…    │
│          │ client-acme  │ mode=chatgpt, id=f1d3e8…    │
│          │ client-globex│ mode=api-key, api-key=yes   │
└──────────┴──────────────┴─────────────────────────────┘

codexswitcher current

Show which account is currently active.

codexswitcher current

✓ personal (active)
  mode=chatgpt, id=9a86901f...

codexswitcher clone <source> <new-name>

Duplicate a saved account under a new name. Useful when you want to keep one profile as a pristine backup before experimenting.

codexswitcher clone personal personal-backup

codexswitcher rename <old> <new>

Rename a saved account. Also moves its backup snapshot and updates the recorded-current pointer if it was the active one.

codexswitcher rename personal home

codexswitcher remove [name]

Remove a saved account. Pass the name directly, or omit it for an interactive picker. Prompts for confirmation unless you pass -y.

# Remove by name
codexswitcher remove old-account
codexswitcher remove old-account -y    # skip confirmation

# Interactive picker — shows a table and prompts you
codexswitcher remove

codexswitcher doctor

Run diagnostic checks and print a summary — useful when something looks off or before filing a bug report. Verifies the codex CLI is on PATH, auth.json parses, and that all saved profiles have 0600 permissions.

codexswitcher doctor

Exits non-zero if any check fails.

codexswitcher list --json

Emit the saved accounts as machine-readable JSON. Handy for scripts:

codexswitcher list --json | jq -r '.[] | select(.is_active) | .name'

Shell completion

Tab completion is available via Typer. Install for the current shell with:

codexswitcher --install-completion

Or print the script and install it yourself with --show-completion.

codexswitcher --version

Show the installed version.

codexswitcher -v
codexswitcher --version

How It Works

~/.codex/
├── auth.json                              ← Live auth (both codex CLI & app read this)
└── .codexswitcher/
    ├── accounts/
    │   ├── personal.auth.json             ← Saved snapshot
    │   ├── business.auth.json             ← Saved snapshot
    │   ├── client-acme.auth.json          ← Saved snapshot
    │   └── client-globex.auth.json        ← Saved snapshot
    ├── backups/
    │   └── business-backup.auth.json      ← Auto-backup before switch
    └── .current                           ← Tracks active account name

When you run codexswitcher save personal, it copies auth.json → personal.auth.json.

When you run codexswitcher use personal, it:

1. Backs up the current auth.json (if linked to a saved account)
2. Copies personal.auth.json → auth.json (atomic replace)
3. Updates the .current state file

Since both the CLI and the desktop app read from the same auth.json, a single switch updates auth for both.

Configuration

All paths can be overridden with environment variables:

Variable	Default	Description
CODEX_HOME	~/.codex	Codex config directory
CODEX_AUTH_FILE	$CODEX_HOME/auth.json	Live auth file path
CODEXSWITCHER_DIR	$CODEX_HOME/.codexswitcher	codexswitcher storage directory

Upgrading from CodexSwitch

If you previously used CodexSwitch (the older name), codexswitcher automatically migrates your saved accounts on first run:

• Your old ~/.codex/.codexswitch/ directory is moved to ~/.codex/.codexswitcher/
• All saved accounts and the active account state are preserved
• No manual steps needed — just run any codexswitcher command

Development

# Clone the repo
git clone https://github.com/MohamedMohana/CodexSwitcher.git
cd CodexSwitcher

# Install with dev dependencies
uv sync --all-extras

# Activate the virtual environment (optional — lets you run commands without 'uv run')
# macOS / Linux
source .venv/bin/activate
# Windows
.venv\Scripts\activate

# Run tests
pytest -v

# Lint
ruff check src/ tests/

# Run locally without installing
codexswitcher --help

License

MIT