Pycharm Community Edition Portable |verified| Jun 2026

By default, these directories reside in your user home folder ( %APPDATA%\JetBrains\PyCharm202x.x on Windows). For a portable installation, you'll redirect all three to locations on your USB drive.

Creating your own portable PyCharm gives you maximum flexibility and understanding of how the IDE manages its files.

PyCharm uses three main directory types, each with a specific purpose: pycharm community edition portable

On your USB drive, create:

JetBrains does not provide an official standalone .exe installer explicitly labeled "Portable" on their main landing page. However, you can easily create a completely portable setup using official files or trusted open-source packages. Method 1: The Official JetBrains ZIP Archive (Recommended) By default, these directories reside in your user

If the manual process seems daunting, there's a much simpler alternative. Community projects have created ready-to-use, portable versions of PyCharm.

For the most control, you can create your own portable PyCharm from scratch. While it requires careful setup, this method gives you a deep understanding of how the portable system works. PyCharm uses three main directory types, each with

Download a portable OpenJDK 17 (e.g., from Adoptium or BellSoft Liberica). Extract it into D:\PortableApps\PyCharmCE\jbr\ . Test: Inside jbr\bin\ , run java -version to confirm.

idea.config.path=$PYCHARM_CONFIG_DIR idea.system.path=$PYCHARM_SYSTEM_DIR idea.plugins.path=$PYCHARM_CONFIG_DIR/plugins idea.log.path=$PYCHARM_CONFIG_DIR/log