Any real difference between using Calibre Portable and regular Calibre on a computer?

[Rellwood]

Im wondering if there is any real benefit or difference between using Calibre portable on a computer vs. installing it.

I myself used the portable back when I wanted to run two instances of Calibre on my computer at the same time - I don't remember why but it was back in Windows 7.

I am reading where people have just put Calibre portable on their desktop and are using that as their main library and their way of "backing it up" is just by copying over the settings folders.

There has to be a reason why this isn't a good idea, but I can't off the top of my head figure out why.

[Quoth]

I think Calibre Portable is a "windows only" thing anyway? Simply a workaround so you can have 2 or more versions on Windows, or have it on a USB Drive (or even an SD card).

[theducks]

The Settings is probably one of the main things that is NOT a direct copy compatible.

Portable is self contained and the Library is in a set location.

You can use Portable to access any Library elsewhere, IT JUST WON'T REMEMBER.

I am also not sure if Portable has the Content Server. (Many public computer operators may not be happy if you started a server on their network)

[BetterRed]

Originally Posted by theducks

The Settings is probably one of the main things that is NOT a direct copy compatible.

Portable is self contained and the Library is in a set location.

You can use Portable to access any Library elsewhere, IT JUST WON'T REMEMBER.

It will 'remember them' i.e. they will be shown in the Quick Switch menu, but it always starts with the library created with the Welcome wizard… even if it's renamed.

Originally Posted by theducks

I am also not sure if Portable has the Content Server. (Many public computer operators may not be happy if you started a server on their network)

The server can be started from calibre portable, I don't know if it's fully functional, but I can't see why not.

One possible difference is that you can't easily share the one install between multiple users with each having their own configuration folders containing preference settings, e.g.

C:\Users\Jack Frost\AppData\Roaming\calibre
C:\Users\Mary Baker\AppData\Roaming\calibre

I've never wanted to do that, hence the speculation.

BR

[capink]

Originally Posted by Quoth

I think Calibre Portable is a "windows only" thing anyway? Simply a workaround so you can have 2 or more versions on Windows, or have it on a USB Drive (or even an SD card).

I can use multiple versions of calibre on linux. You just extract the archive and put it anywhere and start calibre from there (without running the calibre post install script, to avoid missing up your main version). It is not dubbed as portable, since you are using the same archive you dowload for regular installation, but it works the same.

You can have as many versions as you want. I've done it multiple times to test my plugins. Not sure about Mac, but I think it would work the same.

[kovidgoyal]

Originally Posted by capink

I can use multiple versions of calibre on linux. You just extract the archive and put it anywhere and start calibre from there (without running the calibre post install script, to avoid missing up your main version). It is not dubbed as portable, since you are using the same archive you dowload for regular installation, but it works the same.

You can have as many versions as you want. I've done it multiple times to test my plugins. Not sure about Mac, but I think it would work the same.

There is calibre-portable.sh and calibre-portable.bat in the resources folder of a calibre installation that you can use to run calibre portable on any system.

[PeterT]

Another difference is that Portable does not contain the Export/Import library feature. This MIGHT be an issue if you ever want to change the O/S that calibre is running on from (say) Windows to Linux or MacOS; one thing that Export/Import handles is the difference in fIlE CaSe sensitivity of differebt O/S's and path length.

[Quoth]

Originally Posted by capink

I can use multiple versions of calibre on linux. You just extract the archive and put it anywhere and start calibre from there (without running the calibre post install script, to avoid missing up your main version). It is not dubbed as portable, since you are using the same archive you dowload for regular installation, but it works the same.

You can have as many versions as you want. I've done it multiple times to test my plugins. Not sure about Mac, but I think it would work the same.

That's what I thought.

[fidvo]

I've been using Calibre Portable on an external hard drive as my main installation for over a decade, and I've never run into any problems. The biggest drawback is that for optimal efficiency you need to put your libraries in sub-folders of the Calibre program folder. And that means that if you need to keep libraries in different places, you need multiple copies of Calibre Portable. I do this myself.

On a positive note, look how many threads there are on this forum asking about backing up settings or moving the library. I have to admit I get a smug feeling when reading these posts and knowing I run an incremental backup of the entire Calibre folder every few days that hardly takes any time at all, and if I want to move the library to a new computer I just have to plug in the hard drive.

I would guess that 90% of the people who use the installed Windows version of Calibre could get by with Portable just fine. (Yes, I'm well aware that there are plenty of exceptions)

[ownedbycats]

One difference i note is Portable always opens its inbult library on start. If store library elewhere, got to change to it.

[fidvo]

Originally Posted by ownedbycats

One difference i note is Portable always opens its inbult library on start. If store library elewhere, got to change to it.

That's almost, but not quite, accurate. Calibre Portable doesn't remember libraries if they're not in subfolders of the main Calibre Portable folder. But as long as the last library you accessed is there, it will open to it the next time you start Calibre.

[ownedbycats]

Its accurate. I specified if you stored library elsewhere.

[BetterRed]

Originally Posted by fidvo

That's almost, but not quite, accurate. Calibre Portable doesn't remember libraries if they're not in subfolders of the main Calibre Portable folder. But as long as the last library you accessed is there, it will open to it the next time you start Calibre.

Originally Posted by ownedbycats

Its accurate. I specified if you stored library elsewhere.

On Windows/NTFS: if you create symbolic links to the libraries stored elsewhere in the Calibre Portable directory… i.e. alongside the default library (Calibre Library)… and you 'hook' them via the Library->Switch/create->Use a previously existing library at the new location option, calibre will handle those libraries as if they were within the Calibre Portable directory.

BR

[fidvo]

Originally Posted by ownedbycats

Its accurate. I specified if you stored library elsewhere.

I get what you're saying now. It was a little ambiguous. Taken by itself, the first sentence, "One difference i note is Portable always opens its inbult library on start," is not accurate, and the "elsewhere" in the second sentence could be interpreted as including other libraries inside the Calibre Portable folder.

My previous post should hopefully clear up the ambiguity.

[JudahsShadow]

Originally Posted by Rellwood

Im wondering if there is any real benefit or difference between using Calibre portable on a computer vs. installing it.

I myself used the portable back when I wanted to run two instances of Calibre on my computer at the same time - I don't remember why but it was back in Windows 7.

I am reading where people have just put Calibre portable on their desktop and are using that as their main library and their way of "backing it up" is just by copying over the settings folders.

There has to be a reason why this isn't a good idea, but I can't off the top of my head figure out why.

I primarily run Calibre Portable. Here are a few differences I've noticed

• Even though the main Calibre portable window has closed there is still a process running in the background doing DB stuff (I assume based on the fact that if that doesn't close on its own, I get DB not properly closed messages next time I run Calibre portable). This can take a long time. It might just be my USB drive, but I'm talking 10-15 min sometimes. The portable apps platform will refuse to shut down and eject the drive until this process closes. I usually open TaskManger, find the calibre process in the list and wait for it to disappear from the list to try and eject the drive.
• Again, it might be my USB drive, but I have a bit of lag for pretty much every operation I do. Importing books, importing duplicates is especially slow for some reason, deleting books (bad imports, etc), loading books in the internal viewer is also very slow, merging book records (I download books in as many officially produced formats as I can legally acquire without having to spend money on the book more than once to reduce the amount of format conversion I do)
• If you are using Calibre portable on a USB Drive or SD Card, you run the standard risks of data corruption if the drive is removed before the program has finished any disk writes and completely closed. I once opened the library on my USB under a natively installed Calibre on Linux and was greeted with a bunch of DB corruption errors. Once that was sorted out, Calibre portable fully closed faster than before (but still nowhere near the speed of closing the one under Linux)
• You have to wait for the portable apps repo to get the new version before you can update to the new version of Calibre, since, AFAIK, you can't use the built-in updater for the core program (you can still update plugins that way though) (And if you opened the calibre portable app before seeing there was an update you have to close it and wait for it to completely close before you can then do the update via the portable apps updater)