How to Create Private Browsing Desktop Shortcuts for Popular Web Browsers

Previously, we’ve discussed the different ways in how you can launch Incognito/InPrivate/Private browsing Windows for all the of the major web browsers that are available at present and we’ve have a quite lengthy article because of the process that needs to be followed just to launch one single browser Window with a special feature and function.

This is the main reason why we’ve researched and tried our very best to provide a workaround that will help every user launch this Private browsing mode in every browser brand easily and thankfully, with the help of our geeky staff, we were able to find a solution!

Yes! There is a shorter way in launching a Private browsing Window for your favorite browser and that’s what we’re going to show in this tutorial but before that, we encourage that you would first read our previous article that shows the longer way in doing this same trick so you can understand why we are doing it in the first place.

First Step, Create a Shortcut for the Browser on Your Desktop Screen

Before we discuss the steps in creating a shortcut for Private browsing on your machine’s Desktop screen, you will first need to create a shortcut for the browser itself on the Desktop because that’s where we are going to make the tweaks. If you don’t know yet how to do this, we strongly recommend that you read this article which shows the different ways in creating program shortcuts in Windows 8.1 and Windows 10.

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Once you are done creating a shortcut for the browser that you want to directly launch to Private browsing mode on your machine’s Desktop screen, it is time to follow the steps that are shown below depending on the browser that you are using.

Adding InPrivate Browsing Desktop Shortcut for Internet Explorer 11

Let us start with the phased-out but still available Internet Explorer 11 browser. After you create a Desktop screen shortcut for this browser, all you need to do is to right-click on the shortcut then from the options box that would appear, simply hit the option that is found at the bottom which says “Properties” as you can see below.

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After clicking the “Properties” option, the “Internet Explorer Properties” Window should open and from here, just click on the tab that is found on top which says “Shortcut” and under it, look for the box that is labeled “Target” as highlighted on the screenshot below.

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Now, to make the shortcut open Internet Explorer 11 in InPrivate mode, all you need to do is edit the Target link by adding ” -private “ { space, hyphen, private } to the end of the target link just after the close quotation mark as shown on the screenshot below.

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After you are done doing this, just click on the “Apply” then “OK” buttons in order to save the changes that you’ve made. To test if it works, you can simply double click on the Internet Explorer 11 icon that is found on the Desktop screen and you should be able to launch the browser in InPrivate mode quickly! It’s as simple as that!

Creating Private Browsing Desktop Shortcut for Google Chrome

There are millions of users who prefer Google Chrome and set it as their computer’s default browser but only a few knows about its private browsing mode called “Incognito”. Just like all of the other major web browser brands, launching the Incognito browsing mode for Google Chrome also takes time so it would be better if you can quickly launch it in this mode using a shortcut that is pinned on the Desktop screen.

To do this, you must first pin a Google Chrome shortcut on your computer’s Desktop section and once you have it there, simply right click on it and hit the “Properties” option that is found at the bottom of the menu that will appear as you can see below.

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The “Google Chrome Properties” Window will then open up and from here, you will need to click on the tab that is found on top that says “Shortcut”. Once the contents of the “Shortcut” tab gets displayed, you’ll need to click inside the box that is labeled “Target” then move the cursor to the last part of the box’s content right after the word “exe”. From here, just press the space key then type in “-incognito” right after as you can see on the screenshot below.

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Again, it’s { space, hyphen, incognito }. Remember to put a space after the word “exe” or the Desktop shortcut will not work at all. Once you are done doing this, simply click on the “Apply” then the “OK” buttons found at the bottom-right portion of the “Google Chrome Properties” Window in order to save the changes that you made. After you do so, you can proceed to the Google Chrome shortcut that you’ve pinned on the Desktop screen, double click on it then voila! It should now open a new Incognito browsing Window on your computer screen.

How to Create Private Browsing Desktop Shortcut for Mozilla Firefox

Now, let’s move on to the next popular browser that geeks and developers love which is known as “Mozilla Firefox”. If you happened to be using this as your default browser and you want to add a shortcut on your machine’s Desktop screen which will directly launch the browser into Private browsing mode then you will need to follow the steps that are shown below.

First of all, you will need to create a shortcut for it on the Desktop screen and once you are done, just right-click on the shortcut then from the menu that would appear, just click on the “Properties” option that is found at the bottom as you can see below.

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After clicking on the “Properties” option, the “Mozilla Firefox Properties” Window should then launch and from here, just click on the “Shortcut” tab on top and once it contents displays, you will need to click inside the “Target” box and move the cursor towards the end of its contents right after the closing quotation mark. Once you are done doing this, simply press the space key then type in “-private” as shown on the screenshot below.

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Again, you need to type in { space, hyphen, private } into the “Target” box after the closing quotation mark. Pressing the space first is important because forgetting to put these exact characters will render the Desktop shortcut useless. Once you are done making these changes, you can test the shortcut by double-clicking on it from the Desktop. If you did things the right way, you should be able to launch a new Private browsing Window of Mozilla Firefox without getting any error notification. If you do get a notification that says there was an error, you’ll need to access the “Mozilla Firefox Properties” Window once again and check if you have entered the right characters into the “Target” input box then correct it in case you committed a mistake in order to make the shortcut work properly.

Creating a Private Browsing Desktop Shortcut for Opera

How about Opera? This browser has become popular because of the unbeatable speed that it has when it comes to accessing websites. If you are using this web browser on your Windows machine then it would become a great advantage to you in terms of keeping yourself secured while browsing if you know how to create a shortcut for it that would automatically open the browser into Private browsing mode.

Just like the other browsers that we discussed above, the very first thing that you need to do is to create a shortcut for Opera on your computer’s Desktop screen. Once this step is done, you will need to right-click on the shortcut that you have just created on your Desktop screen then from the menu box that will appear, just click on the link that is found at the bottom which says “Properties” just like what we did in the previous browsers that we’ve discussed above.

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Next, a small Window will open which is labeled “Opera Properties” and just like the other browsers that we’ve taken up above, you will need to click on the tab that is found at the top which says “Shortcut” then once its contents are displayed, simply click inside the input box which is labeled “Target” then place the cursor to the end part of its contents right after the closing quotation mark. After doing this, you will simply need to enter “-private”. Again, it’s { space, hyphen, private }. Don’t forget to include a space before “-private” as you can see on the screenshot below to make sure that the shortcut would exactly as it is intended to.

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After you are done making the changes inside the “Target” input box, just click on the “Apply” then the “OK” buttons that is found at the bottom of the “Opera Properties” Window in order to make the changes final. You can then close the “Opera Properties” Window after you do this then proceed to the Desktop screen in order to test the shortcut and it should launch Opera in Private browsing mode after you double-click on the shortcut.

Keep Yourself Safe While Browsing With This Awesome Feature

As you can see, creating a shortcut for Private, InPrivate or Incognito browsing in all of the major browsers that are available at present is really easy. This trick is going to be very useful to you especially if you need to use this browsing mode most of the time. Private browsing leaves no trace of your browsing session and it doesn’t store stuff like auto-fill data, cookies, cache and others which normal browsing store.

Did you encounter any problem while following the steps that we’ve given above? We’re here to help solve it. Just describe the error that you kept having and post them on the comments section below and we’ll do our best to give you the solution the soonest. Our community of Windows-loving readers might also be able to help so what are you waiting for? Come on now and join the discussion!