Hello,
it all sounds so promising in the beginning - download thunderbird portable - but the Thunderbird Portable Live special ini to the application and store everything on CD - so easy....well that was in the beginning.
In february Lycos Europe closed down their services and i spend lots of time finding a appropionate solution storing my mail account and was happy reading about Thunderbird Portable Live.So thanks to the easy Pop3 support downloading all my emails was a snap.Thanks at this point for the great customer friendly usage!
After a short time all my mails have been deleted from Lyco's host and stored on my HDD along with a portable and nice looking Thunderbird Mail client.After reading the FAQ i then put the ini for burning Thunderbird Live on CD to the app archive and with excited expectations waited to get the CD burnt and started.
But with a big disappointment i then encountered some strange problems.The application saved over 300mb of my stored Mail profile to my HDD!The other choice - not saving to hdd - on the other hand leads to a complete shutdown of the Thunderbird Portable Live client.
Honestly,i dont want to store this backup on my hdd now everytime i run the Thunderbird Portable Live CD that makes no sense in term of "making backups" to me.I just want to put in my Lycos Backup CD and search through my archive everytime i need to find some correspondence information.
IHMO There shouldnt be made promises which can't fill the customer needs and mislead to more problems.
Thunderbird (Portable) is without a doubt a great Mail client and nice idea but for my purpose its handling is simply not acceptable and usefull.
kind regards
Mario
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Thunderbird itself doesn't allow its profile or app folder to be read-only. So, everything is copied locally and run from there. There is no way to adjust this.
The live version is not designed to be used as an archive of email in the way you intend nor is it billed as such. It's primarily to demo Thunderbird to others from CD. Or to carry around a mail client that links to your mail online.
Sometimes, the impossible can become possible, if you're awesome!
May not be intended use but can be done at least with version 2.0.0.12, the Live Mode ini and some mbox import and export addon like the one at:
https://nic-nac-project.org/~kaosmos/mboximport-en.html
If needed I can do an step by step how-to
Otherwise sorry to bump an old thread
ZeroA4
I use Thunderbird Portable in a few different ways and accounts.
Two of the accounts I have set it up for separately are no longer in use, but I need to refer to the old emails now and then - worse, the emails are only in the office machine and I need them at home now.
I would like to make a full copy of each installation (adjusted to be 'live mode' and run them as needed in offline mode from CD.
Yes, I see where John says it is not made for that, but then I also see where ZeroA4 says it can be done and would like some help to do it from anyone who knows how.
I am still using version 2.x and as I said this is for personal reference/archival use only and I want it all to remain static and on the CD.
Thanks.
mark
There's really no reason to 'archive' to a CD anymore. In today's storage terms, they don't hold much at all. And they degrade over time and can become unreadable in as little as 2 years or less, so you should not be storing anything important on CDRs.
Just import it all into a Thunderbird Portable 3.x install and run it from your hard drive in an out of the way location (like an Archive folder). You can even store it on an external backup drive if you want.
Sometimes, the impossible can become possible, if you're awesome!
I do need to archive these 2 static accounts with their info because that exact info is sometimes needed at 2 locations that are a 1/2 hour drive from one another.
When I was in better health I was in the office much more, but now I have been forced to work from home alot and sometimes I need to reference old emails for needed info.
The PC I use at home is pretty well maxed out and I've already had to clean it out several times due to disk space issues.
I also do not wish to carry a USB drive around with me for these 'just in case' times, so having these unchanging sets of data on read-only media, with a copy at each place is the best idea for my uses.
As this would be just like a live demo, why will it not work with the correct launcher and .ini file ?
Thanks,
mark
The entire profile must be copied to the local machine for Thunderbird to be able to interact with it. Thunderbird doesn't work with read-only profiles. Period. So if your PC doesn't have enough room for it to archive it, you can't use it from CD either. Plus, you must remember that your burned CDR could be unreadable in as little as 20 months. CDRs/DVDRs are NOT a reliable long-term archival media.
You are much better off storing it on two different USB drives and just leaving it in both places. Or saved on both PCs. You can find one with more space than a CDR for not much money. Less than the cost of a pack of CDRs actually. Staples just had a 2GB flash drive for $1.99 after rebate last week.
Sometimes, the impossible can become possible, if you're awesome!
Sadly in our rural area I seldom see the staples circular and forget to check it online because it is hard for me to get there.
At 1.99 I would have grabbed a couple though if I could have.
They are now all around $10.
I am sad that you say this will not work as I need it to and wonder what that previous poster meant when he said he got it to work.
At any event and with my non-existent budget I will wait and see if a couple of USB sticks yell at me how cheap they are sometime soon.
As a side note, I have already had USB sticks and flash media fail that was under a year old, and have CDs and DVDs that are years old and still reading fine - could be because they are very gently cared for, perhaps ?
The CDRs/DVDRs can fail that quickly even if stored on a shelf, in the case at room temperature. Unlike pressed CDs and DVDs, burnable media is just some colored dye and it degrades after time. It all depends on the quality of the individual discs. Unfortunately, quality varies from spindle to spindle depending on who made it and you can't tell by brand name as they all outsource it to 3rd parties now. It's a commodity item without much quality control. So, it shouldn't be treated as archival.
Flash drives will generally last much longer as long as you buy a name brand. Don't buy ebay or no-name brand drives. Flash drives that cheap are just about everywhere. Target currently has Dane-Elec drives $4.99 for 1gb, $9 for 4gb. Similar prices on Amazon and TigerDirect (though you have shipping, of course). Bottom line is you can find em sooner or later. And you can just use the app as intended.
Sometimes, the impossible can become possible, if you're awesome!
Convenient - outside the PC storage IS the issue.
No worries though - the free/personal (and even portable) version of Mailbag Assistant will do ALL that I need as confirmed by a company rep, and handles a whole bunch of email formats too so I can even add in my ancient Calypso mail archives and get those off the PC's hard drive too !!!
Thanks John, for providing the impetus I needed to research into mail archiving further, as this allows me to solve a problem which will only become bigger as time passes.
Peace Out.
mark
are going to be smaller and more universal to handle then CD now. Many smaller computers do not have a CD player any more, so you can do same with simple usb flash stick, the media the portable apps are designed for.
Otto Sykora
Basel, Switzerland
And that is NOT what I desire to use for many reasons.
My PCs have optical drives and will continue to have them as long as the media is practical for me.
Since I have 100's of CDs and DVD waiting to be used, it'll be a while yet !
Portable apps may have been inspired by USB media - but they are also absolutely wonderful improvements on the plethora of install-only bloatware that contributes to winrot and I use as many portables as possible in place of installables on my windows PCs.
Best Wishes.
mark