Since I want to use Thunderbird Portable from an USB flash drive the drive letter and path could change from time to time resp. computer to computer.
When I go now to Account Settings----Account---->>Server Settings
then the local directory is specified as ABSOLUTE path:
D:\tools\ThunBirdPort\Data\profile\Mail\pet345@hotmail.com
I would like to change it to a RELATIVE path starting from Thunderbird.exe by "go up two directory levels then descend into Data\profile\Mail\pet345@hotmail.com".
According to common Unix/linux (and oftentimes Windows) standards this can be specified relatively by double dots like:
..\..\Data\profile\Mail\pet345@hotmail.com
Unfortunately this is NOT accepted by Thunderbird.
Is there a workaround?
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Our Launcher already does this for you, remembering the last path from which it was run, determining the new path from which it is being run, and updating the necessary values where needed.
Unless you have seen a specific issue or circumstance where this isn't the case, you should never have to specify relative paths for that info as long as you are using our officially released Thunderbird Portable.
As far as I can see, the program requests absolute locations for the message store "local directory" field in Server Settings. For example, I keep my message store in "D:\PortableApps\Thunderbird\Data\profile\Mail\wallywalters@hotmail.com," where "D:" is my thumb drive. But if I move the thumb drive to another PC where the first available drive letter is E:, the Thunderbird executable will still launch (as you noted) but it will continue to look for my emails on that computer's drive D:
For Thunderbird to be truly portable, there needs to be a way to set the location of the data folders relative to the program location. Is there any way to specify something like "%Data%\profile\Mail\wallywalters@hotmail.com," so Thunderbird portable can find its data folders on any PC?
Any full paths stored within prefs.js are automatically adjusted by the launcher as you move PCs. If you manually specify a full path to something within Thunderbird that is then stored in the prefs.js file, the ThunderbirdPortable.exe launcher will automatically adjust it by replacing the last path it was run from with the current path in that file.
Sometimes, the impossible can become possible, if you're awesome!