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up vote 13 down vote favorite

I've got a 4 GB SanDisk Cruzer here with practically nothing on it, and I'm about to go house-sit for a friend with a computer but no internet. It sure would be nice to play Minecraft while he's away, but I'd just as soon not muck around in his Documents and Settings\Application Files folders.

Is it possible to have Minecraft and my world on the flash drive itself such that I can play it directly from the drive, rather than installing to each computer I bring it to?

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2  
Related question: Run MineOS from USB stick – Ben Blank Sep 19 '11 at 23:36
@Ben Only sort of related. The only relevance is reassurance about the expected lifespan of a USB drive used in this manner. – SevenSidedDie Sep 20 '11 at 2:52
@SevenSidedDie — MineOS is also an alternative to custom launchers when it comes to creating a portable install of Minecraft. All in all, it seemed worth linking. – Ben Blank Sep 20 '11 at 5:58
As a possible workaround (involving a lot less hassle), you could possibly use your phone as a means to connect to the internet (wifi access point or modem), that will get you through the initial sign-in process at least. – wonea Sep 20 '11 at 10:08
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@Ben It would still need the Minecraft client installed somewhere, though, right? It doesn't seem like it would help much to run a local server… but if there's something I'm missing that makes it more helpful than I realise, perhaps explaining in a full answer is warranted. ;) – SevenSidedDie Sep 20 '11 at 14:45
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3 Answers

up vote 9 down vote accepted

PortableApps hosts a Minecraft Portable launcher that will run off a USB stick, though you have to run it once for it to download and store the data and binaries from minecraft.net (as required by the Minecraft end-user license). I haven't tested it, but it claims to use the native launcher to be forward-compatible as new versions of Minecraft are released.

On the Minecraft Forums, there is a Java-based portable launcher that explicitly advertises compatibility with version 1.8.

There is also an article about creating a Windows batch file by hand that will make Minecraft look for its files and your saves on a USB key.

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Gonna give this a try, but all the same I think we have our answer, barring somebody else coming forward with a better solution. – jsnlxndrlv Sep 20 '11 at 5:12
up vote 2 down vote 
@echo off
Title Minecraft Launcher
set APPDATA=%CD%\
start %CD%\minecraft.exe

Save that into a .bat file in the same folder as Minecraft on your flash drive.

Presto!

I don't know how to do the same on a Mac, though.

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Mac version: HOME=/Volumes/NAMEOFYOURFLASHDRIVE/Minecraft /Applications/Minecraft.app/Contents/MacOS/JavaApplicationStub. I don't know of a nice simple way to make it find the path automatically. – Kevin Reid Dec 8 '11 at 3:35
up vote 0 down vote

Using Kevin Reid's comment on the Windows .bat file, here is a Mac .command file that will do the same thing.

echo Minecraft Launcher
cd /Volumes/FLASH\ DRIVE\ NAME
HOME=/Volumes/FLASH\ DRIVE\ NAME
open Minecraft.app

Note that if there are spaces in your flash drive's name, you will need to include a '\' before each space.

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