How to Run Opera Always in Private Mode by Default on Windows

Private browsing in a web browsers like Opera, lets you automatically leave traces of your website visits. Once you close the private window, all of your browsing history will be removed by the browser itself from your computer, thus you don’t have to worry about your privacy. However, you need to note that using private browsing doesn’t prevent any website collecting your personal data including (but not limited to) your IP address, device information, etc.

Private browsing is known as “Incognito” in Google Chrome and “InPrivate” in Microsoft Internet Explorer. Firefox uses the same term “Private mode” as Opera.

In some cases, you may need to launch Opera in private mode very often or sometimes the private mode is the only mode you need. Depending on your need, you can make Opera work for you. You can either use Opera’s menu to launch private window, or create a shortcut (or configure existing shortcut) that always runs a private. In a private window, all the tabs you open there will be private.

Manually Launch Private Mode Window

Click on Opera menu from top left corner and then New private window.

Or hit Ctrl+Shift+N on your keyboard to quickly open private window.

Configuring Existing Shortcuts for Automatic/Default Private Mode

1. Right-click on Opera Icon from your desktop or Windows Taskbar (depends on which shortcut your want to use as private mode launcher) and choose Properties.
   
2. In Shortcut tab, under Target field, add “ –private” (Double-hyphen, not en-dash. Don’t copy from here, use your keyboard) without quotes at the end of the line. There’s a space before the double hyphen.
   
3. To make you certain, here’s a closer look at the line:
   
4. Hit Apply. Select Continue if it asks for access denied type dialog.
5. Done.

To create a new shortcut for default private mode, other than changing existing shortcuts, right-click on the Opera’s old shortcut on desktop (or it can be found at C:\Program Files\Opera\) and choose “Create shortcut”. You can then use above procedure to make this shortcut always run in private mode.

Note that, if you download or save something or bookmark a link, it will not be removed once you close Opera private window. Check Opera Help page for more details.

For Opera on Ubuntu/Linux, linuxandlife has an excellent tutorial.