Portable Version Instruction by Royi

thanks a million for this portable version, its a fantastic step!
unfortunately, the community plug-ins are not working for me. (“Failed to load community plugins”). not sure if that is the right place to ask. is there anything i can do?

@Royi I think it’s better you open a share and showcase thread.

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@Royi the shared link has expired (as you’ve warned :sweat_smile:

Perhaps while waiting for this to be accepted into portable app repo, can we share the binary in ur github?

I am still struggling with the Online installer. I need a direct access to the app-64.7z to make the installer work.

I wanted to open an issue at GitHub - obsidianmd/obsidian-releases: Community plugins list, theme list, and releases of Obsidian. to ask for a flat ZIP which contains the content of app-64.7z but there is no option to open an issue.

@WhiteNoise can u help out with the above? I’m not sure what @Royi is referring but I’m sure u would be able to advise. Tqs

Same issue as other people. Want to use at work. Not supposed to install software on Windows machine. If I could run off a USB stick that would enable me to keep a personal knowledge database to assist with work in this job and future jobs.

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you can get that by unpacking the .exe. 7zip does it.

I’m aware of that (See my previous post on how I achieve portability).
The problem is that the PortableApps installer doesn’t support the current packaging.
So if there was a published ZIP in the GitHub releases which contains the content of app-64.7z which inside the exe it allow making the PortableApps installer generic and always up to date.

Download/bundle 7zip command line utility and use it.

I am limited to what the PortableApps installer can do.
With scripts / tools I wrote how to make a portable version in: Obsidian Run in Portable Mode? - #23 by Royi.

But in order to create an online version of PortableApps I need an archive which has the contents of app-64.7z.

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OK, I think I have solved the issue with the Online Installer.
It seems to work now. So I will be able to release everything on GitHub soon so everybody can use the latest and greatest :-).

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That’s great news. Can’t wait to try it.

Hello @Royi,
Thanks a bunch for what you’re doing.

The PortableApps Obsidian 0.14.6 package has already expired from WeTransfer. Could you please keep it available for download until it is officially on the PortableApps platform ?

Thanks in advance

Just as a follow up in support of this, I’m adding this link to developer resources for converting an existing Windows app to a portable one from the PortableApps.com website, as well as the following description for those unfamiliar with portable apps and why they’re so useful.

When a Windows app is packaged as a portable app, it’s an .exe file that can be double-clicked and run from wherever it’s sitting without needing to be installed.

Portable apps don’t touch the registry, so they can be run from anywhere, including (the most common use) a USB thumb drive. They can (but don’t have to be) submitted to the PortableApps.com repo, which also has an launcher for them that will keep them updated and enables browsing and “installation.” I don’t use Windows much anymore, but if I did, I would really want to see a portable version of Obsidian.

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hi there, the programme wont start on Win10, any ideas as to why not?

+100 for Portable mode.

The portability of Obsidian vaults is one of the most beautiful things about Obsidian. Pretty unbelievable that it doesn’t have an app portable mode.

Has there been any progress on this? The BAT script above doesn’t work, the wetransfer link is down, and no responses for ~3 months for PortableApps.com.
Is this a pipe dream at this point?

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portable pls

Very necessary! I tried the method with substitution through BAT. But if I launch a link in a browser from Obsidian, then a new profile is created. And all the cache and garbage from the browser ends up in my folder! This is bad :frowning:

The problem is I am not sure which env variable is used by Obsidian to locate the user profile folder.
Since many env variables are changed, when you launch the browser it will see an empty APPDATA folder and will recreate a profile folder.

It seems to exclusively use %USERPROFILE% as a root path. I was able to reduce your launcher down to:

@echo off
:: Setting Env Variables
set "USERPROFILE=%~dp0User"
set "TEMP=%USERPROFILE%\AppData\Local\Temp"
set "TMP=%USERPROFILE%\AppData\Local\Temp"

:: Creating Folders
if not exist "%USERPROFILE%\AppData\Roaming" mkdir "%USERPROFILE%\AppData\Roaming"
if not exist "%USERPROFILE%\Documents" mkdir "%USERPROFILE%\Documents"
if not exist "%USERPROFILE%\AppData\Local\Temp" mkdir "%USERPROFILE%\AppData\Local\Temp"

start "" "%~dp0Obsidian.exe"

and in my limited testing it works without issue.

Since writing to flashdrives is usually slower, you could probably leave the temp variables alone. Although to be compliant with the portableapps standard, you subpath them to %LOCALAPPDATA%\Obsidian\Temp on the OS drive so any temp files generated can be cleanly removed on shutdown.

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