Could I use 2 Thunderbird email programs on one PC? Perhaps one beta?

Hi All,
Still searching for a decent email client!

Been using eM Client, but had problems with lag.
Tried out The Bat, but I didn't like the way it always forwarded emails as an attachment and it was a bit confusing to use.

I've set up Thunderbird for my wife's account and we just want to keep our work separate.
Could I install a beta Thunderbird program on the same computer as well???

Would it interfere with the other Thunderbird?

Thanks!!!

Why do you need 2 installations of Thunderbird?
One installation can easily handle multiple email accounts.

One common way of doing this is to use one copy of Thunderbird, with two or more profiles.

There is a good assortment of articles about Tb profiles, and the profile manager, at Knowledge Base - MozillaZine Knowledge Base .

In your case, you could have a profile for your wife, a second for yourself, and use the profile manager to quickly and easily switch between the two profiles.

If you do try 2 installations be sure to use Custom Install on one to keep it separate from the other. I'd prefer getting the SeaMonkey browser for the second which does include a separate E-Mail Client. It's also from Mozilla.

Hi:

I agree with @LMiller7 and @Not Myself...

TB stores email account (and other) data in one's PROFILE, not in the program files.

The "easiest" (read: least complicated) thing to do would be for your wife and you to share one TB profile. You can set up as many different email accounts as you need within that one profile. (I have at least 3 or 4 different ISP, webmail and Exchange accounts under 1 TB profile on each of my systems.)

The next easiest way to go about it would be to create a different TB profile for your wife. You would have your profile with your accounts, and your wife would have her profile with her accounts. This would be the approach if you want to keep your email accounts separate from each other.

The most complicated (and potentially most risky) way to go about it would be to have 2 TB installs, e.g. the "real", installed version (currently 45.4.0) for you AND a "portable" install for your wife. Please be aware that there is no "official" "portable" version of TB (currently 45.3.0 portable). But there is a credible, stable, popular version available at a 3rd-party site, called portableapps.com. Or you could follow @Berton's advice, with one "standard" install of TB and one "custom" install to a different directory. Yes, you would have 2 different "versions" of TB on the same computer. There are more ways to screw things up with this approach.

There are many, detailed tutorials at forums.mozillazine.org (and a few at mozilla.org) that explain how to implement each of these options.

As for having one "release" install and one "beta" install, that would be a bad idea. Beta software, by definition, can be unstable and buggy. Unless one were prepared to deal with such instability, it would not be a good idea to use a "beta" product for something as important as one's email client on one's production computer.

HTH,

MM

Thank you all for your replies. You have been very helpful.