Multi-Window Support

[njleonzhang]

can I open multi insomnia instance in mac for different workspace?

5.12.4.1752

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[gschier]

Multiple windows are not currently supported at this time but hopefully this will be possible in the future.

As a (very hacky) workaround on Mac, you can duplicate the application with a different name, which will let you start two separate instances.

[njleonzhang]

@gschier tnx for response. wait for this feature, tnx.

[Fyb3roptik]

Any chance this gets bumped up in the todo list? This feature would be great!

[gschier]

Still on the list. There's actually a surprisingly large amount of work to do to make this work

[stale[bot]]

This issue has been automatically marked as stale because it has not had recent activity. It will be closed if no further activity occurs. Thank you for your contributions.

[Fyb3roptik]

Please keep alive!

[nyel-gh]

still waiting ...

[alatella87]

+1

[jatinhariani]

+1

[Fyb3roptik]

@gschier Lets reactivate this please!

[dbodow]

+1

Or, if you find another good way to have a user work with multiple requests at once, that works too. I need to be able to see data from one endpoint and use it to play around with another endpoint side-by-side.

[labs-dlugo]

+1

[CallMeLaNN]

Insomnia is the best especially about the simplicity of the UI, plain json environment, E2EE and full GraphQL support.

I'm looking for multi-window support for a long time. This is the only missing feature in Insomnia and it is the only blocker for my team to get Teams plan and keep using multiple tools until now. Having many APIs for OIDC, GraphQL and REST from many backends require many open windows/tabs during API development of a feature.

I think the first step for Insomnia team is to describe the technical challenges other than creating electron new BrowserWindow, so we can look into this issue.

[raevilman]

On macOS, I am using below to launch an extra Insomnia instance. Works fine for me.

open -n -a "insomnia"

[LaythIbraheem]

Sorry that doesnt work, it does open "Another" Insomnia but it closes right after.

[sgarner]

I just wrote a feature request for the same thing in a help ticket and was directed to post here. I'm pleased to see this feature has already been discussed and appears to be quite popular, but troubled that it's apparently gone a long time with little progress!

I appreciate that this may be more work than it sounds - I'm imagining a bunch of things might need conceptual rewrites to allow concurrent operation - but it would clearly be a major step forward that would satisfy a lot of users, so I hope it can be given more priority.

Here's what I wrote:

Could you please make it possible to open multiple windows for the application at once on macOS?

I do contract work for multiple clients at a time and frequently need to context switch between projects. I like to organise the projects I'm working on into different Mac "Spaces" (desktops) to keep things tidy.

Insomnia already has excellent support for multiple workspaces. All that's missing is the ability to have different workspaces open concurrently in separate windows. This would help my productivity and happiness. For now I am stuck with one window that I have to move around all the time.

Thank you to the devs for your consideration. (Insomnia is awesome!)

---

On macOS, I am using below to launch an extra Insomnia instance. Works fine for me.

open -n -a "insomnia"

I haven't tried this command exactly but I did try copying the whole Insomnia.app and opening it multiple times that way. This appeared to work okay until a reboot; when Insomnia re-opened, all of my requests were wiped. It looks like multiple copies of the app all write to a single set of database files in the ~/Library directory - and that presumably leads to conflicts and data corruption. So I'd urge caution to anyone doing this, it may end in tears. See #1763 (comment)

[dimitropoulos]

@nijikokun I'm wondering if this would be in scope for the upcoming work on spaces. If nothing else, I'd like us to keep this use-case in mind when we're building spaces so we make sure to pick a filesystem architecture that's not incompatible with multi-window.

[0xR]

My usecase for this feature: I'm working on a GraphQL gateway using GraphQL federation. Multiple windows would allow me view the graphql documentation for the gateway as well as the docs for an unlying graphql backend.

Now I have to fallback to the browser.

[IcaroAF]

Still no updates for this issue? =/

[wdawson]

Hey folks. Apologies for the long delay on this feature. Unfortunately, I still don't have any news on when we'll get around to it. I will say I have been thinking a lot about various ways to make it easier to do the work that you need to do with Insomnia while keeping the interface as simple as possible.

So far I see two use-cases in this discussion that are similar but slightly different:

1. You want to have two different workspaces (collections/design documents) open at once if you're working on multiple things at the same time.
2. You want to have documentation or other side bars open in separate windows to get more real estate.

Anything else that you want to see covered here too?

Again, I appreciate your patience with this idea (and several others) that has remained open for many years at this point. We're a small but mighty team and committed to building you the best tool that we can.

As a reminder, the best way to get our attention on these Discussions is to use the upvoting feature, circled below, instead of emoji:

[akivajgordon]

I have a different use case:

The API that I'm building requires interaction between two individuals; for example, one individual sends a message, the other wants to read that message, and perhaps several successive actions just like that.

The authentication that I'm using is cookie-based. Insomnia stores and sends the cookies for me, but I can only ever "be" one person at a time, i.e. the latest one that received the cookie, since the previous authentication cookie gets overwritten. It would be convenient for me to have both of these users each have their own cookies at the same time, similar to how one mentally models incognito windows – you can log into one account in one window, another account in another window, and all works smoothly as expected within each window.

Without such a feature, my current workflow is kind of like:

1. Authenticate as user A
2. [A] send message to user B
3. Authenticate as user B
4. [B] read message from A
5. [B] send message to A
6. Authenticate as user A
7. [A] read message from B
8. [A] send message to B
9. Authenticate as user B
10. [B] read message from A

...etc. Basically I'd prefer to only have to authenticate as each user one time, but in isolated spaces, so that I can easily send messages back and forth.

[dabernathy89]

My use case is similar. I have 2 APIs I need to work with - one actually uses the other one under the hood. I'd like to be able to run these side-by-side so that I can see changes reflected properly without having to move back-and-forth between two workspaces.

[adamdehaven]

Even just being able to see the Design/Debug tabs at the same time would be great.

[skyridertk]

On windows, Shift + Left Click insomnia icon. It should launch another instance

[kneoio]

The trick doesn't work, at least in win 11

[JustSaX]

Is it now possible to open a second Insomnia window on Mac?

[LaythIbraheem]

Is it now possible to open a second Insomnia window on Mac?

[ranescarter]

Is it now possible to open a second Insomnia window on Mac?

[AnthonyTwd]

I'm not a MacOS user, but @raevilman here on the discussion use this code on Mac
open -n -a "insomnia"

raevilman comment

[LaythIbraheem]

open -n -a "insomnia" ... Sorry that doesnt work, it does open "Another" Insomnia but it closes right after.

[LaythIbraheem]

Common guys, we need to open a second Insomnia on Mac .. why is it so hard ??

#keepThreadAlive

[subnetmarco]

Hello everyone, we are currently working on this capability and it will ship at the next Insomnia release. You will be able to open multiple instances of the Insomnia application to work simultaneously on different projects and files (cc @jackkav who is implementing this feature).

[LaythIbraheem]

Thanks @subnetmarco , whats the ETA for this feature ?

[MypowerHD]

Hello, are there any updates regarding this?
It is still not working on Windows at the moment

[jackkav]

@CurryYangxx @ihexxa please ensure there are no regressions in multi window support across all features

[ihexxa]

Hello @MypowerHD could you elaborate the problem?

[MypowerHD]

Hello @ihexxa,
to reproduce:

1. open Insomnia
2. try to open a new Insomnia instance
   Insomnia did not open a new Window.

Only this works:

1. open Insomnia
2. File
3. New Window

[CurryYangxx]

try to open a new Insomnia instance
Insomnia did not open a new Window.

@MypowerHD Sorry, I don't understand how you do this.
I think File->New Window is the only way to create a new Window.