Codex Account Switcher

Humanity has suffered for too long.

Not war. Not famine. Not taxes.

The real ancient curse was this:

1. Click around trying to remember which Codex profile you are on.
2. Dive through menus and sub-menus just to see remaining usage.
3. Realize you are on the wrong account anyway.
4. Sigh like a Victorian orphan.

This extension fixes that.

You get fast Codex account/profile switching, visible usage, side-by-side usage comparisons, profile recovery tools, and less menu spelunking in general.

Civilization advances. Next stop: Mars.

Demo

What You Get

• A clean status bar switcher for jumping between Codex accounts/profiles.
• A separate usage monitor so you can see your remaining 5-hour and weekly allowance at a glance.
• A detailed usage view with charts, reset times, token usage, and profile comparison.
• Optional experimental web usage probing with explicit opt-in and graceful fallback to the supported refresh paths.
• Saved Codex profiles you can rename, delete, export, import, refresh, and reauthenticate.
• Optional masking for profile names and email addresses in the UI when you are screen sharing or streaming.
• Recovery tools for the inevitable moment when a token decides it no longer believes in tomorrow.
• Optional safety checks that warn before switching while Codex appears busy, with an opt-out setting if you prefer manual control.
• Optional workspace-aware profile prompts so repos can nudge you toward the profile they usually use, with a global off switch if that gets annoying.
• Support for local setups, WSL setups, and remote/SSH workflows.

The Fun Part

Once it is set up, your flow becomes:

1. Click the status bar.
2. Pick the profile you want.
3. Keep working.

And when you want to check usage:

1. Glance at the usage item in the status bar.
2. Click it if you want the full fancy panel.
3. Compare profiles like the extremely serious professional you definitely are.

Feature Set

Fast Profile Switching

• Switch Codex accounts/profiles from a picker in the status bar.
• Keep multiple named profiles ready to go.
• Put the switcher on the left or right side of the status bar.
• Optional switch confirmation if you like guardrails.

Usage Without Archaeology

• See last-known 5-hour and weekly usage right in the status bar.
• Choose whether percentages show remaining or used.
• Get a richer hover tooltip with reset timing and token usage.
• Open the full Codex Usage panel for comparison and history.
• If no fresh usage data exists yet, the extension says Unknown instead of pretending you still have plenty left.
• When the active profile is nearly out of usage, optionally ask to switch to another profile with a recent cached usage snapshot that still has capacity.

Codex Usage Details Panel

• Large, readable side-by-side usage view.
• Compare your current profile against another saved profile.
• One-click Switch Now action from the compare panel.
• Daily, weekly, monthly, and yearly history ranges.
• Charts for per-profile usage history.
• Usage History charts with visible percentage scales and hoverable data points for recorded timestamps and token context.
• Reset timing and token usage details without cluttering the status bar.

Profile Management

• Import the current auth.json as a saved profile.
• Import an auth file manually.
• Choose what happens after import/link:
  • ask whether to switch
  • switch immediately
  • keep your current active profile
• Log in with Codex CLI and save the result as a profile.
• Keep separate saved profiles for different effective contexts on the same OpenAI login, including personal and Team-style Codex contexts.
• Rename profiles.
• Delete profiles.
• Export/import profiles for backup or transfer, with encrypted exports recommended and plain JSON still available when you need it.
• Reauthenticate a profile when tokens expire.
• Refresh a saved profile from the current auth without deleting and rebuilding it.

Keeps Your Profile State Together

• Preserves the full saved auth payload per profile.
• Preserves Codex config state per profile too, so switching back feels like switching back.
• Handy when different profiles want different model or reasoning defaults.

Quick Start

1. Install the extension.
2. Click the status bar switcher.
3. Choose one of these:
   • Login via Codex CLI...
   • Import current auth.json
   • Import auth file...
4. Give the profile a sensible name.
5. Switch like a person who values their time.

If you used the older snapshot-based version, it migrates those legacy accounts into the profile system automatically.

Commands

• codexAccountSwitcher.switchAccount
• codexAccountSwitcher.addAccount
• codexAccountSwitcher.deleteAccount
• codexAccountSwitcher.renameProfile
• codexAccountSwitcher.reauthenticateProfile
• codexAccountSwitcher.updateProfileFromCurrentAuth
• codexAccountSwitcher.manageProfiles
• codexAccountSwitcher.loginWithCodexCli
• codexAccountSwitcher.importProfiles
• codexAccountSwitcher.exportProfiles
• codexAccountSwitcher.editAccounts
• codexAccountSwitcher.exportActiveAuth

Settings

Everything lives under codexAccountSwitcher.*.

Most useful ones:

• storageMode: choose how saved profiles are stored.
• statusBarSide: put the switcher on the left or right.
• confirmBeforeSwitch: add a confirmation step before switching.
• processSafetyChecksEnabled: warn before switching while Codex appears active and suppress low-usage auto-switching while live Codex processes are detected.
• showUsageInStatusBar: show/hide the usage monitor item.
• showUsageInSwitcher: show/hide usage inside the picker.
• maskProfileNames: hide saved profile names in status bar text, pickers, tooltips, dialogs, the usage panel, and diagnostics.
• maskProfileEmails: hide saved profile email addresses in those same UI surfaces.
• usagePercentDisplay: choose remaining or used percentages.
• usageSourceMode: choose auto, appServerOnly, or localOnly usage refresh behavior.
• experimentalWebUsageProbeEnabled: opt into an undocumented ChatGPT web usage probe; if it fails, the extension falls back to the supported app-server and local session sources.
• workspaceProfilePromptsEnabled: let the extension remember a preferred profile for the current repo/workspace and suggest switching when that workspace usually uses a different profile.
• usageColorsEnabled: enable colored usage indicators.
• usageWarningColor / usageCriticalColor: optional overrides for the warning/critical colors; leave unset for theme-aware defaults.
• usageRefreshIntervalSeconds: control how often usage refreshes while VS Code is open.
• lowUsageProfileSwitchBehavior: off, ask, or auto when the active profile is nearly exhausted and another profile has recent cached availability.
• lowUsageSwitchThresholdPercent: how low “nearly exhausted” means.
• lowUsageCandidateFreshnessSeconds: how recent another profile’s cached usage must be before it is considered switch-safe.
• lowUsageAutoSwitchCountdownSeconds: countdown length before auto mode switches.
• reloadTarget: choose extension-host restart or full window reload behavior.
• importProfileSwitchBehavior: choose whether imported/linked profiles switch immediately, never switch, or ask first.

Example:

{
  "codexAccountSwitcher.storageMode": "auto",
  "codexAccountSwitcher.statusBarSide": "right",
  "codexAccountSwitcher.showUsageInStatusBar": true,
  "codexAccountSwitcher.showUsageInSwitcher": true,
  "codexAccountSwitcher.processSafetyChecksEnabled": true,
  "codexAccountSwitcher.maskProfileNames": false,
  "codexAccountSwitcher.maskProfileEmails": false,
  "codexAccountSwitcher.usagePercentDisplay": "remaining",
  "codexAccountSwitcher.usageSourceMode": "auto",
  "codexAccountSwitcher.experimentalWebUsageProbeEnabled": false,
  "codexAccountSwitcher.usageColorsEnabled": true,
  "codexAccountSwitcher.usageRefreshIntervalSeconds": 30,
  "codexAccountSwitcher.lowUsageProfileSwitchBehavior": "ask"
}

Usage and refresh tooltips now also show the last refresh outcome, so you can tell whether a refresh fetched newer data, found no newer data, or returned no usage at all.

If you enable the experimental web usage probe, the extension tries that undocumented source first and then degrades back to the supported app-server/session-file path when the web probe fails or stops returning valid data.

Profile exports now let you choose between:

• Encrypted (Recommended): prompts for a passphrase before writing the export file.
• Plain JSON: skips encryption when you explicitly need an unencrypted backup.

Older plain JSON exports can still be imported for compatibility, and encrypted exports require the matching passphrase on import.

You can also manually refresh active-profile usage from:

• the status bar refresh item
• the switcher/manage menus
• the Refresh Now button in the usage details panel

If saved profile metadata ever gets out of sync with the underlying stored profile secrets, use Repair saved profiles to rebuild the valid profile list and clear broken active/last-profile references.

Use Open diagnostics when you need a single place to inspect resolved Codex paths, storage mode, usage source mode, watcher state, CLI resolution, the last refresh result, and health warnings with suggested next steps.

Security

Saved Codex auth is sensitive.

This extension is built to avoid splashing secrets around, but you still need basic operational sense.

• Treat exported profile files like passwords.
• Do not commit them.
• Do not casually share them.
• If a profile stops authenticating, use the reauthentication flow rather than deleting everything in a rage.

Support The Madness

If this extension saves you time, you can sponsor the people building it.

Dondake Ltd was formed by the longtime friends behind Cyprus Comic Con, a non-profit community platform that has been grinding away for more than 12 years and now reaches nearly 60,000 people a year across its wider event ecosystem.

• Sponsor Dondake Ltd: https://github.com/sponsors/Dondake-Ltd
• Sponsor Cyprus Comic Con: https://github.com/sponsors/Cyprus-Comic-Con
• More about us: https://dondake.ltd

Notes For Power Users

• Usage refresh prefers live codex app-server rate-limit data and falls back to local Codex session data when needed.
• The active profile updates live as new usage data appears.
• Per-profile usage history is retained so the details panel can chart it over time.
• WSL and remote/SSH setups are supported.
• Low-usage switch suggestions only consider other profiles whose cached usage data is recent enough; the extension does not invent capacity for profiles it has not seen recently.

Development

• npm run compile
• npm test
• npm run test:integration
• npm run package

Manual release checklist is in TESTING.md.

This extension began as a way to stop wasting time on account switching and usage checking. It has now evolved into a small monument to not putting up with nonsense.