10 Cool and Free Portable Programs (You Need to See)

[@soulstenance]

The coolest free programs are the ones that are free as in freedom, not necessarily free as in beer, though that typically comes with. I actually voluntarily pay for a lot of free programs, because they're so good and I want to support the project.

[@nikunjkhangwal]

This is the right mindset.

[@TheSultan1470]

ok

[@BillAnt]

My favorite quote "An app worth using is worth buying". :) I've actually donated to many "free" app devs in appreciation of their work. That OpenSpeedTest is pretty cool, letting your test the speed even on an internal network.

[@stlbuddhist]

Nirsoft and Sysinternals have saved me lots of times doing support. Steve Gibson has always been a mad man writing utilities in assembler. I did not know you could run OBS in portable mode, that is very cool.

[@cybernoid001]

Another note, portable version generally don't need admin privilege's to run, which can be handy if you an IT tech helping someone.

[@michamarkowski2204]

They do need elevated privileges for power operations. You can't use portable apps to bypass UAC.

[@liforra]

@@michamarkowski2204 right, thats the nature of uac, but they dont install thus they dong access path and dont need elevated permissions to just run, if they need to do extra stuff with elevation thats smth different

[@lior_haddad]

Surprisingly informative! I've got several of these, but haven't heard of like half of them. I really appreciate how you get straight to the point with these. It's like a breath of fresh air.

[@AndyHoward]

another protable program: SubtitlesSynchronizer [sic]: Helps you synchronize and edit existing subtitle files vua a GUI (instead of having to do it "by hand")

[@theman8005]

Aegisub is also a good subtitle editor, and has a portable version

[@patrickbuswell]

Nice! I also love SubSync, does it all automatically using the audio track

[@jirehla-ab1671]

How about removing duplicate folders

[@marhensa]

there's also Monitorian, it can adjust PC monitor brightness inside windows (just like a laptop monitor), without pressing any button on monitor.

[@SMVery]

7:38 guitar riff in the song was so good they made it play twice!

[@jrmyg1621]

HAHAHAHHA

[@dimaverse]

6:51 Base OpenRGB can't do a lot of stuff, but the Effects plugin adds a lot more functionality - I use it to sync RGB to audio.

[@dwdadevil]

I have to check that!

[@backhdlp]

Another benefit of portable programs is that you don't have to check in what program files or app data folder their data is. Also, (very niche use case) at least at my school, the school laptops always reset most files (except in the user folder) after a reboot. Portable apps can just live in the user folder and stay usable even after a reboot.

[@TonyP9279]

Your school is probably using Deep Freeze, I hate that. I've lost so much stuff because I didn't save it to my personal drive and then if I had to reboot, everything was gone.

[@backhdlp]

​@@TonyP9279My school actually uses Dr-Kaiser PC-Wächter, something that looks like it didn't get a UI update in 20 years. It's really bad, I was able to get into the control panel by putting in a random IP I found in the registry as the password. To be fair, I couldn't replicate that on any other school PC because I don't know what ungodly sins I committed on my school laptop.

[@sunla]

One I haven't seen mentioned here is called File Splitter. You know how there's a filesize limit when transferring files to some file storage devices, such as an SD card, even though you know there's enough space on the card/device? Well, you can take the file and split it into chunks. Then when the chunks are transferred, you can merge the chunks back up to recreate the original file!

[@sunla]

@@desild5869 that's interesting! I'll check that out in a few hours here - I had no idea 7-zip offers that feature, but I feel like that's something I should've guessed. I think 7-zip has to be acquired and installed anyway, and I'm sure some people are no longer installing it on fresh Win11 installations, since Windows now has native zip/7z/RAR support. But I always get 7-zip regardless because it has a lot more options to work with, and there are forks of it out there that can be used for additional, highly situational/specific compression support, like the LZ4/LZ5 files found in some Samsung firmwares (mcmilk handles those)

[@FlyboyHelosim]

Damn, I haven't had to split a file since like 1998!

[@sunla]

@@FlyboyHelosim it has other, more modern use cases - I've come to find it helpful when using a cloud storage service that scans and removes files. Just something to consider.

[@FlyboyHelosim]

@@sunla You mean like if the cloud service has a file size limit?

[@sunla]

@@FlyboyHelosim no. That's not what I'm insinuating.

[@SS-vo9id]

Another cool program that has a portable version is Sumatra PDF. Ultra fast and ultra tiny, it can open not just PDF files but also a couple of other eBook formats. The best I found for reading so far.

[@hal-hb2of]

nice portable program. but i got some characters not being well read lately. like some letters with aposthropes. it replaces it with some other unknown character

[@jupa7166]

Notepad++ with its vertical blocks, regex replace, bulk replace in several files, lots of plugins (e.g. sort, compare and many more), has also portable version. Another one - Wireshark.

[@TonyP9279]

Notepad++ RULES!!! It's the best for block editing and stripping of formatting codes.

[@TylerBonenfant]

I love notepad++, one of the first programs I install in every single one of my computers

[@TyphonNeuron]

Videos like this one are gold. Thanks.

[@SomeYouTubeGuy]

The second you mentioned the file size of ValiDrive it reminded me of the utilities Steve Gibson wrote years ago that I used and then you said Steve actually wrote this one as well! I love simple well written software and Steve is the master of it.

[@werethless12]

Dunno if it has a portable version, but Everything is AMAZING to find any files on your PC

[@xBINARYGODx]

excellent thanx

[@luketurner314]

On their website, under "Installing Everything", one of the versions is Portable and they give instructions for how to make it so, mainly "extract the exe file" (paraphrased). And there's a portable zip on the download page

[@mystica-subs]

Ah Steve Gibson and his ASM coded tools of amazement :) Am very happy to see the old timers GRC and Nirsoft mentioned here, and Sysinternals (Glad MS finally hired him!)

[@juliusreycalderon1998]

My favorite portable software would be Explorer++ since it's very minimal and takes less space than modern Explere where spacing takes a lot of space so it is very useful when you're working on a lot of files or directories.

[@juliusreycalderon1998]

"space" I mean like the interface controls does not take much space on screen unlike Windows File Explorer.

[@michamarkowski2204]

I use it in my WinPE toolsets as the default window after initial boot (mainly to easy run other portable apps).

[@smallqwaro]

Bulk rename utility has saved me multiple times. Kudos to whoever made it.

[@180rotator]

linux content of 2024 when

[@Spectrulight]

Not enough views

[@Stanislav1928]

Never

[@shishsquared]

Well, I mean, it IS the year of the Linux Desktop

[@sdrtyrtyrtyuty]

Just switch to M$ Botnet 11 :)

[@everypizza]

​@@shishsquaredisn't that every year

[@ErgunPascu]

Sooooo helpful and practical! Thank you!

[@rahulahl]

Openspeedtest sounds excellent to test how well your wireless VR will perform and highlight any network issues letting you know if it's worth an upgrade or not. This is a very common issue with Quest 2/3 or Pico 4 devices.

[@nermhouse]

shaderglass is another cool program that i think needs more attention. its built off the retroarch game filters, but it can be used on any game/program and i’ve used it a bunch for graphic design purposes

[@WritesWithCare]

Wonderful! You alerted me to better versions of portable apps I'm using, and gave me some new ideas. Selecting freeware is difficult, with all of the malware floating around, so it's invaluable to have trustworthy recommendations.

[@someoneoutthere1866]

Lots of good tools.. nice list thanks

[@kandym3478]

I didn't skip the add, thanks for being here Theo.

[@KryzysX]

Rest assured, sir. Whether or not you choose to skip, it will have no impact on his channel monetization situation. Feel free to skip at your convenience. ;)

[@JaimeCastillo-o4f]

🤯

[@fizixx]

I do the same

[@robertrocheville7769]

If you're talking about the sponsor, I'm sure tissue fully skippable. The Google ads I think count towards monetization. From my understanding as long at you go past the half way point it counts. Let me know if I'm wrong.

[@tsbrownie]

Really great info, thanks! Also, went and bought a gGreen charger.

[@ChrisWilliams-pu8pj]

Love these type of videos. Thank you!

[@surgestrip]

Steve Gibson at GRC is a legend

[@dakaargamer]

bulk rename utility! ive been working with a ton of pbr textures over the past couple of year but none of them are named consistently. this sounds perfect for what i need!

[@JessicaFEREM]

Make sure to run OBS as administrator on windows, apparently there's some edge cases that cause it to lag a stream out that doesn't happen when in admin, some windows process priority and game mode shenanigans

[@grilsegrils9330]

Wiztree definitely 👍 Used that one or similar utility. Very good for very full SSD drives, as it isn't to healthy to run those drives to full

[@samuelshubert]

Solid video!! 10/10. This is why I’m still subscribed

[@hyplayer]

Thanks Joe!

[@loubano]

Great video and program !!! Thank you so much !!!!!!!!

[@mriverlands9584]

For me the biggest advantage of portable apps is you can try checking the different boxes and options then easily reset back to "factory defaults" with a simple folder delete without having to remember what you experimented with. This avoids the annoying Windows habit of splattering preferences in C:\programdata, 2 appdata folders and various reg keys that likely won't get removed with a standard program uninstall.

[@JorgeALXNDR]

This Bulk Rename Utility is perfect for when I download Spotify playlists and have to rename them all to delete the 01 -, 02 -... of the songs

[@adre2194]

How do you download Spotify playlists?

[@ivovass195]

Very useful indeed. Thanks

[@stephenluttrell8958]

As a blind user, some installed programs have settings that aren’t screen reader friendly or a pain to set up such as OBS. Having a portable version that we only have to mess with once is very nice.

[@PeterR0035]

Some real must-haves!!! ❤❤❤❤

[@RedOneM]

Thank you, I'm finally able to change the LED color on my MSI suprim 3090 to off 😍

[@iuhere]

the info liek creating a file for obs or data folder for vscode are very helpful and thank you for including those details

[@Philipp..]

Some more: Revo Uninstaller Portable Advanced IP Scanner

[@maxgood42]

This is more powerful than expected. Even the free version is great. Jay just made a vid about it.

[@Solarpunk_SciFi]

These are so much more useful than the non portable programs, I don't care whether they're portable!

[@Sierra_Vice]

Portable OBS helped me alot. One, I can put it all in a folder for easy transfer to other systems without setting it up over and over again, and second, for creating backups, if an update broke some plugins.

[@ShivanshThapliyal]

I have already used: 🗿 1. Bulk Rename Utility 2. OBS Studio 3. OpenSpeedTest 4. VS Code (Portable)

[@ExTea]

ThioJoe with another banger useful video

[@luketurner314]

Although I prefer installed versions, having a USB drive of tools is helpful when I have to put on the hat of Family Tech Support

[@JP8431]

Nice vídeo! Thx!

[@skatcat743]

Ones I use quite often at work are DDU, GPU-Z, OCCT & PatchMyPC

[@dobisskill]

A cool thing that should be noted is that Winget supports portable application updates if the application is in the repo and it was originally installed through Winget

[@maxanimator9547]

How would one install an AppXPackage locally ?

[@skyserf]

6:34 How are you running a 4090 and 3090 simultaneously?

[@ChrisW228]

Bulk Rename Utility has been a fave for years. I am so so so bummed that I can’t find a version for Mac.

[@عبدالرحمنالفيصلبهيالدين]

thank you very much you helped me alot with my PC .repeating my thanks Thio

[@ashcheeks1]

Thanks Joe 😁

[@briancason6579]

I would love to find a decent free pdf editor for work purposes. I know there are plenty available through the browser, but that requires uploading the document to some cloud, which does not seem consistent with workplace security values. It sounds like using a portable version would be a good solution - any suggestions for free pdf editors that have portable versions?

[@Eternal_Tech]

PDFgear is a free PDF editor and is considered useful by many. There is a portable version, but this portable version is not produced by PDFgear themselves, but by a site called FileCatchers, which makes many portable applications.

[@michamarkowski2204]

PDF X-Change Editor (Plus) has a lot of free editing options. There is an option in the settings where you could hide paid options. Sejda PDF Desktop has a lot of free tools, but it's limited to 3 or 5 documents (each document 100 pages max) a day.

[@robbybankston4238]

I've used many of these and I agree. The thing that bothers me is that this used to be the norm for programs back in the 90s but the industry pushed us to accept large bloated, non-portable programs. Understandably, some programs are complex enough that it would be difficult to do so but I think a lot of it is just laziness on the part of some devs. Of course this lends itself well to utility programs.

[@RichardPhillips1066]

Good security suite , process explorer, proc mon, tcpip view, last activity view, glasswire firewall

[@billg5584]

A lot of "Portable" programs create folders in the User\AppData\Local and/or User\AppData\Roaming folders. A lot also create registry entries when they are run. There are very few truly portable programs that do not create any registry entries, or create any files outside of their own directory.

[@Petch85]

OCCT is also great. You can test the stability of CPU, memory, GPU and VRAM while monitoring a lot of stuff. It can do a little more and you can pay to remove a 10 sec delay if you use it a lot.

[@sharukhlinkon9457]

Tnx a lot❤😊

[@BarisUnver]

Instead of Bulk Rename Utility, I'm using Advanced Renamer for years. Its UI isn't as overwhelming and I'm pretty sure it has way more features, if not the same ones with BRU.

[@SwedeReact]

Amazing, thanks @ThioJoe !

[@Szklana147]

0:28 - it is not working with an old Logitech G mouses :( Great G700 in my case.

[@spidermonkae]

Are installed programs the same size as portable programs?

[@ThioJoe]

Generally yes, but might actually be slightly larger because they might need to include libraries and stuff that otherwise are shared by installed programs

[@liforra]

They should be,?as the only difference is the install locations it of course depends on the application, for example if the application adds files based on if its portable or not,. But in general the only thing that chances is the install locations, so yes

[@spidermonkae]

@@ThioJoe Oh thanks, I was just wondering because I have low storage space on my laptop (its only 128gb)

[@Crystawth]

@@spidermonkae The great thing about them being portable though is you could put them on a flash drive and just plug it in when you need it

[@michamarkowski2204]

It depends. In most cases portable apps are the same size or larger than installed apps.

[@facelessvaper]

I didn't need a charger, but I did buy a ugreen cable, tbf I already have a ugreen USB SD reader before I'd heard of ugreen and it works well. My B550 tomahawk has USB C PD so I can charge my new phone via that, although the phone maxes out at 33w.

[@dplj4428]

Are any of these for Mac? 4:10 OBS studio, yes 6:21 assembly! Back to days of yore on a commodore 64. Listening to all of this, i can see why some people like iPad and iPhone. 11:31 How do you know if these portables are safe?

[@balsalmalberto8086]

You should do a video on sandboxie. You can make many other programs that have an installer "portable" in sense they can't muck up your windows install directly, like steam games with atrocious drm or less savory executables. It's lighter than a VM. I've used it since 2004 and it's kept windows lean and mean for decades.

[@Mr_L_i_am]

Mildly surprised happy computer man 😂

[@jimlynch9390]

For Linux users, BRU appears to load up and display using wine. I didn't have a use case for it so I didn't test it any further. In wine, the z drive is apparently the root directory (/). I loaded the 32 bit, portable version.

[@flamencoprof]

I keep a heap of Portable Apps on a USB stick on my keyring, including a key password-encrypted app, a file viewer that can Irfan, uh, even view pix, music, vids and even HEX, a .mp3 tag editor, I Kid you not, and a few more. I also have an EDC bag I never use, but you never know. Well, the one that Keeps my Passwords is actually often used.

[@maroon3353]

Pls Make a video to setup the grub installation and grub rescue to install a Linux OS (e.g. zorin os, mint, etc). Nowadays it's kinda of a new problem out here 😅

[@toseltreps1101]

CPU-Z, HWInfo64 are also portable

[@xila8861]

Bulk Rename app seems pretty cool to me

[@mxgamer124]

Note: open rgb doesnt rally work on wierless devices with a 2.4 ghz dongle (for example my hyperx pulsefire hast wierless doesnt work with open rgb or any rgb software exept for the official one)

[@chhavikantsingh]

I have a folder with bunch of similar or duplicate videos and I want to keep distinct copy of each image but I can't find a free utility tool to accomplish this. Can anyone help me with any such free tool to address this issue

[@MStrong95]

ValiDrive for Mac OS would be nice

[@acegear]

rename tool + explorer and plugin compress and decompress files which i usually use name total commander and it has free to use if you can accept the nag screen everytime you open

[@rationalbushcraft]

Surprised that winscp wasn't on your list.

[@laurenlewis4189]

I know CLI is taboo for most people, but you can do everything that Bulk Rename Utility can do with a single line of text instructions in Powershell (or any other shell)

[@michamarkowski2204]

@@thomasbohl6924 if I understand documentation correctly, yes

[@CaptainSoapMacTavish]

This is not just ThioJoe, This is ThioJoe Tech Tips (TTT)

[@BombadilBeardie]

my fave are Rufus and Notepad+ portables

[@raging666]

Joe plays Destiny 2?! Subbed just for that! ...OK, and because the content has been useful.

[@Charldeon]

Man if it wasn't for this video telling me about Validrive I wouldn't have found out that my Seagate hard drive was actually fake and not just malfunctioning. Finally opened it up physically and was horrified to see a flash drive inside 💀

[@ThioJoe]

yikes

[@Earthcrosser]

Thanks for this Thio as always. I was happy with the 1st one as I have Logitech MX Master from 2S, 3 and 3S. However, I found out that this portable app is only for Logitech gaming mice. So, not for me. Wanna get rid of that bloated software of theirs. Or am I wrong to assume that?

[@5h0pp]

for the renaming, why do you have to get it portable? for me microsoft power toys has a renaming function and it does good and is easy to use its installable but as i said why portable for this?

[@BonJoviBeatlesLedZep]

I actually prefer installed programs because it helps start with a clean slate if i need to reset the computer, and it populates into the start menu

[@hoomanbing]

I agree

[@BonJoviBeatlesLedZep]

@@hoomanbing I have a Personal Folder/Applications folder for them, but I still find it more convenient to have them installed

[@red2]

Portable versions are better as they tend to keep everything in the same directory they offer a true clean slate experience.

[@nikunjkhangwal]

You can put portable apps in start menu

[@KryzysX]

1:15 This is definitely helpful!

[@Eichro]

Not free (I mean it kinda is in the same way WinRAR is free), but for music production people, REAPER has a portable install option. It's actually what I chose and I don't regret it. Makes it so much easier to carry settings between computers when necessary.

[@balsalmalberto8086]

A fun fact of Reaper DAW is the guy behind it worked on NSIS which used by portable apps and infamous audio player WinAMP.

[@Eichro]

I'm pretty sure the guy behind it is really the guy behind Winamp

[@Smartzenegger]

You are the high-tech godfather on youtube. :)

[@ardianhotii]

If you install the portable version of the VSCode does it pull all literally all the files in that data folder that you mentioned also when you update it too? I'm curious

[@loganfong2911]

I used to use Firefox in portable mode before I switch to Chrome. Quite useful too.

[@midao139]

Is there anything like the logitech app but for corsair?

[@_mikishi_]

Is there a PS script to put portables into the windows PATH variables so they show up in search in start menu?

[@Robert8455]

Thanks ThioJoe

[@Fahmi4869]

Do portable programs still make files in the registry?

[@michamarkowski2204]

In 99% cases no. The whole idea of portable apps is to not temper with the host OS. Some apps store settings in a file (e.g. config.ini in the root directory of the app), some don't store settings at all. There are apps out there to monitor disk and registry changes so you could check if specific app changes host's registry.

[@Fahmi4869]

@@michamarkowski2204 I see

[@tombohawk]

cool video, past me would've defo liked this

[@linuxstreamer8910]

do all of these apps keep there setting files in the same folder if not they are not portable

[@69k_gold]

As you mentioned VS Code, I use a Ubuntu VM in VirtualBox. VS Code runs really slow in it. How can I speed it up/Do you have any alternatives you can suggest?

[@holden.a]

Portable programs used to leave leftovers in many places 😮😮😮

[@mosarafhalsana783]

Love your videos . Keep it up 😀. Watching u from the starting. BTW can u make a video on : How to move from windows to Linux , appreciate it 🤔if u made my video idea

[@abe-danger]

i wonder if there's a "VailDrive" but for hard drives, I got an iffy "2"tb m.2 which im suspecting of being less than half of its actual capacity

[@jacobboening6421]

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