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Moving from Portable TB to Installed version

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  • Last reply by david

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I installed TB 115 portable to review it. I now have it all setup and configured to my liking. Now I want replace my installed v102 with the new portable ver. My plan is to upgrade to installed from 102 to 115.5.2 (same as portable). But what files/directories do I need to move to do this? I have the Installed ver on C: (Win10) and the portable on D: .

Road map please.

I installed TB 115 portable to review it. I now have it all setup and configured to my liking. Now I want replace my installed v102 with the new portable ver. My plan is to upgrade to installed from 102 to 115.5.2 (same as portable). But what files/directories do I need to move to do this? I have the Installed ver on C: (Win10) and the portable on D: . Road map please.

All Replies (9)

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Install from thunderbird.net and it will upgrade your installed 102 version.

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That doesn't answer my question. I have made many tweaks to the setup of 115 port. even changed some ad-on. Where do I find all of these files/directories in the portable version and where is the target on the installed version to be replaced.

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What if I fully remove the old installed version. Then install the current version. But before setting it all up I do a full export of the portable version and then import it all to the new installed version?

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That will work. But you do not need to uninstall the old version, just update to 115, prior to the import.

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I can't get the Import to work. 1st the .zip file is greater than 2Gb. 2nd it doesn't find a profile in the portable file to pull from. Neither option is usable. I still think that if I had a map of which folders on th eportable went to which directories in the installed version it would be just a coyp/replace.

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OK I got the import to run and the basic data came over but the screens are not what I had in the perforable version. The fonts are to large and the details in the boxes are not right. I'm guessing that EVERYTHING does not transfer. If I can't get the installed copy right I will just move my portable from the D: (HD) to the C: (NVME). And live with that.

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fulton1 said

I still think that if I had a map of which folders on th eportable went to which directories in the installed version it would be just a coyp/replace.

Good luck with that. The portable version of Thunderbird comes from a group called portable apps. I and I guess no one else here has ever even used the thing. We use Thunderbird, so are not in the slightest really aware of the differences the portable apps folk make.

There wi8ll be a profiles folder, and to the best of my knowledge it will be identical. Profile folders all have the prefs.js file in the root so manual zipping of that folder and it's children should make an easy copy and replace. Unless you used the Microsoft apps store version of Thunderbird which is something of a mystery like the portable apps one, except it is released by the same folks. Just they appear to have forgotten to document anything about it. Apparently it keeps it's profile somewhere completely different to the version installed from Thunderbird.net and lives in some sort of virtual space on your system. I am still trying to get to how it works using the Microsoft MSIX distribution tools.

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Thank you, I got my portable ver. from MajorGeeks and don't know but assume it a PortApps version. I not finding any real relationship with the contents of folders in the versions. I'm staying with Portable for now.

Again thank for trying, I didn't know the rabbit hole I was going down when I spent hours tweaking the port. to my liking.

This ticket can be closed.

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The portable profile is under the Data folder, and the name might be Thunderbird. You can verify by following Matt's post and look for a prefs.js file. I have found that a portable profile can be copied, but it needs to be done with TB shut down, using Windows File Explorer.