Use Thunderbird and Thunderbird Portable

Thunderbird portable is the portable version of Thunderbird, it does not require an installation which makes it an ideal tool for USB sticks and removable storage devices. I’m using Thunderbird on my desktop computer and decided that I wanted to use Thunderbird Portable on my USB drive to be able to check mails when on the road.

The theory was to copy all the mails, profile settings and other settings from Thunderbird to the Thunderbird portable folder and use it from there. It took some time but I finally managed that Thunderbird portable had all the mails, contacts and settings that I have been using in Thunderbird for some years now.

Download the portable version of Thunderbird and install it on your hard drive or device that you want to use. Please note that this installation is more or less only an unpacking of the contents, nothing will be written to the Registry or system files.

Locate your Thunderbird profile folder which can normally be found in “C:\Documents and Settings\username\Application Data\Thunderbird\Profiles\xxxxxxxx.default”. Now copy the files localstore.rdf, abook.mab, prefs.js, the Mail and News folder to the profile folder of the Thunderbird portable directory. That folder is located in ThunderbirdPortable\Data\profile.

Replace the files if asked and open the file prefs.js afterwards. You will notice that the mail accounts are pointing to the profile folder of the normal Thunderbird installation, this has to change. Replace all paths to the local Thunderbird profile folder (the one starting with C:\\Documents and Settings\\username with the path to the portable Thunderbird folder.

A valid path would look like this: F:\\Thunderbird\\ThunderbirdPortable\\Data\\profile\\Mail\\Local Folders. Please note that you have to use double \\ instead of single \. This has to be done for every mail account that you use. All are located in the same file though, so no need to worry that much.

Once that file has been edited you can start the portable Thunderbird installation. I changed one setting in portable Thunderbird, I did not want it to download and delete the mail from the mail server. I changed that so that it would download the mails but leave them on the server.

Click on Tools > Account Settings and there on every Server Settings entry. Check Leave messages on server for all accounts and close the settings afterwards. Another option would be to sync both profiles whenever both are connected to the same PC.

Syncing is probably the better option. You could use Sync Toy if you use Windows XP to sync both Mail folders with ease. I write about that in another article.