How to change the place where Opera stores your data

Saturday, October 9, 2004 9:11:41 AM

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edited October 20 2007 to be more complete
edited June 30 2008 to add 9.5 changes

To move from a multi-user to a single-user setup
  1. take note of the current locations shown in 'Help > About Opera' [1]
  2. close Opera
  3. open 'OperaDef6.ini' from the main Opera folder (where opera.exe can be found) in a plain text editor like Notepad
  4. change the line 'Multi-user=1' to 'Multi-user=0'
  5. save and close 'OperaDef6.ini'
  6. copy the Profile and Mail folder from the 'Documents and settings' folder to the main Opera folder
  7. 9.5: copy the contents of both Profile folders [1] to the profile folder you create under the main Opera folder
  8. 9.5: doublecheck whether your mail data was stored under '\Local settings\Application data' (the new default location) or '\Application data' (the old default location)
  9. open 'opera6.ini' from the newly created Profile folder in a plain text editor
  10. update all the file paths you find there to match the new location
  11. save and close 'opera6.ini'
  12. done


To move from a single-user to a multi-user setup
  1. take note of the current locations shown in 'Help > About Opera'
  2. close Opera
  3. open 'OperaDef6.ini' from the main Opera folder in a plain text editor
  4. change the line 'Multi-user=0' to 'Multi-user=1'
  5. save and close 'OperaDef6.ini'
  6. start Opera, this should give you clean new profile folders under the 'Application data' folders for the current user
  7. take note of the current locations shown in 'Help > About Opera' [1]
  8. close Opera
  9. copy the Profile and Mail folders from the main Opera folder to the noted new directories, replacing the newly created profile files (these can be overwritten)
  10. 9.5: note that the profile subfolders 'bt_metadata', 'cache4', 'images', 'opcache', 'voicelib', 'vps' will go to the profile folder under '\Local settings\Application data'
  11. 9.5: note that the Mail folder will also go under '\Local settings\Application data'
  12. open 'opera6.ini' from the new Profile folder in a plain text editor
  13. update all the file paths you find there to match the new locations
  14. save and close 'opera6.ini'
  15. done


To move to a setup with the profile data saved in a random location
  1. take note of the current locations shown in 'Help > About Opera'
  2. close Opera
  3. copy the Profile and Mail folders from the 'Documents and settings' folder to your chosen locations
  4. open 'opera6.ini' from the Profile folder in a plain text editor
  5. update all the file paths you find there
  6. save and close 'opera.ini'
  7. create a shortcut with this commandline:
    "C:\Program files\Opera\opera.exe" /settings "{path to profile folder}\opera6.ini"
    ... of course, using you chosen locations.
  8. done


[1]Default folder locations for multi-user installations when using Windows XP
  • main (installation) folder is likely 'C:\Program files\Opera\'
  • profile folders can likely be found at 'C:\Documents and settings\username\Application data\Opera\Opera\' and 'C:\Documents and settings\username\Local Settings\Application data\Opera\Opera\' (the latter are used by installations of Opera 9.5 and later for data not suited for inclusion in a roaming profile)
  • mail directory is likely either 'C:\Documents and settings\username\Application data\Opera\Opera\mail\' or 'C:\Documents and settings\username\Local Settings\Application data\Opera\Opera\mail\' depending on whether you started with 9.5 or an earlier Opera version.


Default folder locations for multi-user installations when using Windows Vista or Windows 7
  • main (installation) folder is likely 'C:\Program files\Opera\'
  • profile folders can likely be found at 'C:\Users\username\Appdata\Roaming\Opera\Opera\' and 'C:\Users\username\Appdata\Local\Opera\Opera\'
  • mail directory is likely 'C:\Users\username\Appdata\Local\Opera\Opera\mail\'


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Comments

dapxin Monday, December 21, 2009 7:17:06 PM

Rijk,

Is it possible to move the vps directory ? I cant find any way to do this via opera:config.

Ice ArdorIceArdor Tuesday, January 5, 2010 6:43:28 AM

Rijk,

Thanks for the instructions. I've cross-posted these instructions on my blog because they were so useful to me.
http://my.opera.com/IceArdor/blog/2010/01/05/changing-opera-profile-directory

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