Gemini CLI: Switch or Change Accounts

Gemini CLI keeps its eligible enterprise login or API-key configuration under ~/.gemini, and holds one active profile at a time. Switching by hand means signing out and back in, or backing up and swapping that directory yourself. aisw works as a Gemini CLI account switcher: each account becomes a named profile, and changing accounts is one command you can check before you open a repository.

Before you start

Google ended Gemini CLI service for free, Google AI Pro and Google AI Ultra individual sign-ins on June 18, 2026. Enterprise Code Assist and API-key authentication remain available; aisw also supports file-backed Vertex AI profiles. If you want to switch individual Google subscriptions, use the Antigravity CLI account guide instead. Saving an old login does not restore upstream access.

Install aisw if you haven’t already:

brew tap burakdede/tap && brew install aisw

CLI method

1. Capture the account you’re currently signed into.

aisw init

If Gemini CLI is already signed in, init detects it and offers to import it as a named profile right in the prompt, accept it and skip the next command. Otherwise, or if you already ran init on this machine before, capture it explicitly:

aisw add gemini work --from-live

Re-running aisw init later is safe, it re-detects live accounts and reports current state without touching profiles you’ve already saved.

2. Add another eligible profile.

aisw add gemini client

For an eligible enterprise Google sign-in, aisw runs your installed gemini against a temporary directory (it sets GEMINI_CLI_HOME), so the sign-in doesn’t touch your live ~/.gemini. When you finish, it copies the new token cache into the profile and prints the Captured account it found. Sign in with a different eligible enterprise account here. Do not use a free, Pro or Ultra individual sign-in for this Gemini CLI path.

To add an API key instead, keep the key out of your shell history: --from-env reads it from GEMINI_API_KEY, and --api-key-stdin reads it from a pipe.

aisw add gemini work-api-key --from-env

3. Switch between them.

aisw use gemini work
aisw use gemini client

4. Confirm the active profile, then start a new session.

aisw status
aisw verify
gemini

status shows the active profile and auth method for each tool. verify checks that the live ~/.gemini files actually match that profile and reports pass or a fix. A Gemini CLI session that was already running keeps the account it started with, so treat a switch as a boundary: switch, check, then launch gemini.

This output illustrates two API-key profiles; use the names you saved in your own setup.

$ aisw list gemini
Gemini CLI
  ○ personal [api-key]
  ○ work-api-key [api-key]

$ aisw use gemini work-api-key
Gemini CLI → work-api-key

  Auth          : api-key
  Backend       : file

Effects
  Live tool configuration updated.
  Active profile updated.
  Backup created before switching.

What aisw changes in ~/.gemini when you switch

What a switch writes depends on how the profile signs in:

• Eligible enterprise Google-login profile. aisw restores Gemini-owned files under ~/.gemini and removes stale Gemini-owned files from the previous profile, including its API-key .env when selecting OAuth. It preserves Antigravity’s antigravity-cli/, antigravity/, antigravity-ide/ and config/ subtrees.
• API-key profile. aisw writes GEMINI_API_KEY to ~/.gemini/.env and selects security.auth.selectedType: gemini-api-key in settings. An imported Vertex AI key profile retains its Vertex provider selection. Writing a key alone would not override an old OAuth provider.

Before switching away from a Google-login profile, aisw checks whether the live ~/.gemini still belongs to the same Google account. If it does, it saves the live files back into that profile first, so token refreshes and local changes from your last session aren’t lost. Every switch also takes a backup first, as the Backup created before switching line shows.

Bind the right account to a repository

Remembering to switch is the weak point. For a repository that must always use your work Gemini account, put the profile in a context and bind the repository to it:

aisw context create work --gemini work
aisw workspace bind . --context work
aisw workspace guard --mode strict

With the guard in strict mode, the shell hook blocks a gemini launch in that repository when the active profile doesn’t match, instead of letting the session start on the wrong account. Prevent the wrong account in a repository covers the guard modes in detail, and profiles vs contexts explains when a context is worth it. If you also switch Claude Code, Codex CLI or Antigravity, add them to the same context and switch all four tools together.

Desktop method

The current public AI Switcher Desktop release covers macOS, Windows x64, and Linux x64. Download the matching build from the download page, then follow the same Gemini profile flow below.

1. Open AI Switcher Desktop and go to Overview.
2. In the Gemini CLI column, select the profile you want and click Activate.
3. The state-mode badge always reads Isolated for Gemini, this is expected.

The CLI suits shell hooks and scripts; Desktop gives you a visible profile list and diagnostics for the active Gemini state. Both read and write the same profiles.

Common problems

If Google rejects a free, Pro or Ultra individual sign-in, use Antigravity CLI; recapturing that login as an aisw profile will not make it eligible.

If aisw add gemini <name> --from-live reports nothing to import, confirm Gemini CLI has actually completed a sign-in first, aisw can only capture credentials that already exist on disk.

If --from-live prints Both Gemini API key (.env) and OAuth cache were found. Imported .env by precedence., you had both a GEMINI_API_KEY in ~/.gemini/.env and a Google login cached, and aisw saved the profile as an API key profile. To save the Google login instead, move ~/.gemini/.env aside and run the command again with --yes.

If adding a Google login fails with Gemini login completed but no credential files were found in the token cache, the browser sign-in didn’t finish within the two minutes aisw waits. Run aisw add gemini <name> again, or add the account with an API key. aisw also warns that some Google-account logins still require GOOGLE_CLOUD_PROJECT; if your account type does, set it before adding the profile.

If add fails with an error naming a different existing profile, that Gemini account is already saved under that name, aisw checks the underlying Google identity, not just the profile name, and won’t create a duplicate. Use the existing profile or remove it first if you want to re-add it under a new name.

If add fails with “profile already exists” instead, that’s a plain name collision, pick a different name, or re-run with --yes to overwrite the existing profile.

For keeping an eligible work profile and a separate API-key profile apart day to day, see work and personal Gemini CLI accounts.