Localization

Mozilla Thunderbird, Portable Edition is available packaged in the following languages:

* indicates that the included help file has not been translated

If your language of choice is not listed, there are 2 methods of getting Thunderbird Portable to appear in your locale:

Method 1: Copy it right in

The easiest way to get Thunderbird Portable in your own language is to simply copy a local installation of Thunderbird (in your prefered language) into Thunderbird Portable. To do this:

1. Install Thunderbird Portable to your portable device as outlined on the support page
2. Delete all the files within the PortableThunderbird\App\thunderbird\ directory
3. Copy your local Thunderbird files to that same directory (you can usually find them in C:\Program Files\Mozilla Thunderbird\ ).
4. Use Thunderbird Portable as normal

You now have Thunderbird Portable in your own language. Messages from the launcher will still be in English (Ex: Another copy of Thunderbird is running...). This will be resolved in a future release.

Method 2: Language Packs and Locale Switcher

The second method is useful if you wish to be able to switch languages on a regular basis. Here are the steps.

1. Install Thunderbird Portable to your portable drive
2. Start Thunderbird Portable
3. Download the Locale-Switcher extension and then install it by doing Tools - Add-Ons, Extensions tab and clicking Install within Thunderbird Portable.
4. Download the language pack you'd like to use and install it using the same method.
5. Close Thunderbird Portable, wait for it to stop writing to your drive, and then restart it to complete installation of the extensions.
6. Head to TOOLS and then LANGUAGES and select the language you which to switch to.
7. Restart Thunderbird Portable for the change to take effect (being sure it has fully closed before restarting).

Now, this method works pretty well and should work for just about everyone. The advantage is that this is a bit cleaner and you can easily switch between multiple languages. The disadvantage is that if your drop a local profile into Thunderbird Portable, you'll need to perform these steps again.

Language Packs

The following link goes to a directory of links to language packs for Thunderbird. You should right-click (or control click) on the appropriate link from the directory and select to save it locally. You can find the links here by language code:

http://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/mozilla.org/thunderbird/releases/2.0.0.14/win32/xpi/