When it is done, you now have a single exe for your portable app. After all this, click done, and wait for WinRAR to finish compressing. In the Advanced Options section of WinRAR, set the SFX to extract to a temp folder and run silently, then specify to run the specific exe after extraction.

Use the following settings (these are what I use):īest Compression, 32kb dictionary size, set as SFX, create Solid Archive, use BLAKE2 Checksum, Add Quick Open Information to all files.

when you are done, open up WinRAR and drag your application files to WinRAR. Now, modify your apps adding plugins, changing settings, etc. Use BeCyIconGrabber to extract the icon from the exe of the portable app, and keep it for later. Then, download WinRAR (if you don't have it) and BeCyIconGrabber (simply search it with Google or DuckDuckGo). This could be Notepad++ or CCleaner: it does not matter. If these disadvantages don't concern you, then let's continue.įirst, download your portable app. AV programs may mark it as a virus, though only 2 AV programs flagged it with a false positive on VirusTotal. This is not really concerning on apps like Notepad++, but larger apps like LibreOffice will be slow to start depending on RAM.ģ. Startup time is slower, since it has to extract the file. Since the app is 'frozen', if you want to modify the app's settings you will have to replace the files in the archive, which can be tedius.Ģ. Now that I have gone over the advantages, lets go over the disadvantages:ġ. File recovery is much easier with only 1 file. This method is stealth, as WinRAR cleans the folder created in the temp folder when the app closes.ħ. Because the fle is smaller (due to WinRAR compression), it will save disk space on your flash drive, with levels comparable to UPX.Ħ.

Fragmentation is reduced on your drive because it is only 1 file instead of multiple.ĥ. Because your app is essentially 'frozen', if you make a mistake you won't run your app setup.Ĥ. These apps run in the computer's temp folder instead of the flash drive, which helps save drive life.ģ. Having only a single file is much easier to manage than having multiple files, even if they are in coherent directories.Ģ. I use this method over the portable apps here for the following reasons:ġ. I am not really creating a portable app, I am simply creating a wrapper around an application that is already stealth. Now before you say that WinRAR doesn't make portable apps, I understand that that is why I put quotes around the word created. Hello, I am new here, and I just wanted to share my way of 'creating' my portable apps using WinRAR's SFX option.

Make any app portable winrar