Running a portable version of OBS Studio

Did you know it’s possible to run multiple installations of OBS Studio on your computer?

Why you might want to run multiple instances of OBS Studio

1. You want to try the new version of OBS Studio without overwriting your installation.
   • This is particularly relevant with the release of OBS Studio 28 which is a massive update, and most of the popular plugins haven’t been adapted to work with it yet.
2. You might want to run an installation for creating Vertical Video and run another installation for creating Horizontal Video so you don’t have to spend your life switching settings.
3. You want to use OBS Studio to record videos about using OBS Studio. (Okay this one is a bit meta.)
4. You want to run a portable version from a USB drive.

How to download, install and run a portal version of OBS Studio

1. Go to OBSProject.com and click on Download.
2. Click on “Download Zip.”
3. Uncompress the zip file to a folder on your computer.
4. In that folder, open the ‘bin’ folder. Then open the ’64bit’ folder.
5. Click on the obs64.exe file and right-click and select, “Create shortcut.”
6. Windows will create a new shortcut to this file. Right-click on that shortcut and go to ‘Properties.’
7. In the shortcut tab, add --portable to the end of the target like this:
   "C:\Users\theuser\Downloads\OBS 28 Portable\bin\64bit\obs64.exe" --portable
8. You might like to go to the General tab and adjust the name to something you’ll better understand such as ‘OBS Portable’ or ‘OBS for Vertical Video.’
9. Click OK.

Now you can open the shortcut to run the portable version of OBS Studio.

You can move the shortcut to another location or even pin it to the Windows bar for easy access.