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Does TBP profile forcefully need to be under TBP install directory?

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December 20, 2016 - 2:18pm
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verbage
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Joined: 2016-12-20 13:35
Does TBP profile forcefully need to be under TBP install directory?

Hi all,

I am a long-time Thunderbird user (normal version, not portable version), and have always kept my Thunderbird (TB) profile segregated on a dedicated data drive vs. on the regular system drive under my Windows user profile. For example, whereas a default TB install would put one's profile under "C:\Documents and Settings\[user]\Application Data\Thunderbird\Profiles\default.???\", I have always pointed it to "D:\My E-mail Profile\" where I've kept my profile for easy backup.

Anyway, I am now wanting to convert to a Thunderbird Portable (TBP) install so I can go from machine to machine with the same USB drive, and have all my offline e-mail instead of just new stuff. Great, easy enough. So I am reading the documentation about TBP, and it seems by default that TBP stores a profile in the Data\profile directory off of the TBP install directory. But I'd like to leave my existing profile intact, and simply point TBP there instead of moving the existing profile into the Data\profile directory off of the TBP install directory. With regular TB, I'd simply use the TB Profile Manager (-profilemanager flag) to point it to the correct location. But I've seen a posting here that seems to suggest TBP does not seem to use the Profile Manager.

Anyway, can anyone provide some guidance about this? Can I indeed have a profile in whatever location, and simply point TBP to it like I can do with a regular TB install. Or must a TBP profile forcefully be located in the Data\profile directory off of the TBP install directory? If the former is possible, how can I do it given that the TB Profile Manager might not work for TBP as a posting here seems to suggest? By manually editing files?

Any guidance you can provide will be appreciated. I have almost a decade of mail under my current TB (normal install) profile, and I really want to make sure I do not run into any hiccups when moving over to TBP. Thanks!

verbage

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December 24, 2016 - 2:43am
ottosykora
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Last seen: 3 hours 16 min ago
Joined: 2007-10-11 17:48
point is to be portable

I think the point of portable apps is basically to be installed on a movable media , e.g. usb stick. The profile of TB should then be on the stick as well, otherwise I do not see the point of portabilize it.
So when the profile is on the usb stick, it is in the data folder, as this is the place for the variables for that particular program, here TB.
There are many good reasons for that. Moving from one computer to other, backup management for example and also during the updates , those data is kept. Some programs also need to make a temporary folders on the hard drive and when closing all will be saved to the data again.
So why to make the things complicated?
Why to keep profile somewhere else when correct path is provided and correctly updated as your stick is moving from one PC to other? Drive letter might change, this will be correctly adjusted for the program itself and its subfolders. But who should adjust the drive letter path for your external folder?

So simply copy your exiting profile to the place in the data folder and all is here.
Sometimes it happends that some extension look kind of broken after such move, but then simply reinstall them over the existing once.

Otto Sykora
Basel, Switzerland

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