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Installation / PortabilityKeePass 2.x installation, uninstallation, portability and updates. |
When downloading KeePass, you have the choice between 3 different packages:
The installer and the portable version are described in detail below.
The source code package contains everything you need to compile KeePass. It includes the C#/C++ source code and header files, resource files, sources for building the installer, etc.
Updating KeePass:
When a new KeePass version has been released, you can update your existing KeePass
installation, without losing any configuration settings. The steps are
depending on which package you are using (installer or portable), see below.
Translations should also be updated when you install a new KeePass version. You can find the latest translation files here: KeePass Translations.
The KeePass development team provides an installer, which copies KeePass to your hard disk, creates shortcuts in the start menu and associates KDBX files with KeePass, if desired.
Additionally, KeePass is automatically configured to store its settings in the application data directory of the current user. This way multiple users can use one KeePass installation without overwriting each other's settings (each user has his own configuration file). The setup program must run with administrative rights, however KeePass runs fine without administrative rights once it is installed.
Installation:
To install KeePass, run the KeePass-2.xx-Setup.exe
file
and follow the wizard.
Updating:
Run the KeePass-2.xx-Setup.exe
file.
You do not need to uninstall the old version first.
Your configuration options will not be lost.
Uninstallation:
In order to uninstall KeePass, run the uninstallation program, which is
accessible by a shortcut in the start menu folder of KeePass, or in
the program section of the system control panel. If you also want
to remove your configuration settings, you need to delete the configuration
file in the application data directory of your user profile, see
Configuration.
Silent Installation:
The KeePass installer KeePass-2.xx-Setup.exe
supports command line
switches for silent installation, i.e. the program gets installed without
asking the user for target directory or association options. The default settings
of the installer are used.
The /SILENT
command line switch performs a silent
installation and shows a status dialog during the setup process. No questions
will be asked though.
The /VERYSILENT
command line switch performs a silent
installation and does not show a status dialog during the setup process.
Destination Path:
The installer allows to choose the destination path to which KeePass is
installed.
However, when the installer detects an existing KeePass installation, it
assumes that the user wants to perform an upgrade and thus doesn't
display the destination path selection page; the old version will be overwritten
by the new version.
If you want to move an existing KeePass installation to a different path,
first uninstall the old version; the installer of the new version will then
display the destination path selection page again.
Options/Components:
The installation options/components are explained in detail here:
What
do the 2.x installation options/components mean in detail?.
The portable version can be carried around on portable devices (like USB sticks) and runs on any computer directly from the device, without any installation. It doesn't store anything on your system (in contrast to the setup package, see above). KeePass doesn't create any new registry keys and it doesn't create any configuration files in your Windows or application data directory of your user profile.
Make sure that KeePass has write access to its application directory. Otherwise, if it doesn't have, it'll attempt to store the configuration options (nothing security-relevant though) into the application data directory of the currently logged on user. For more about that, see this page: Configuration.
Installation:
KeePass does not need to be installed. Just download the ZIP package, unpack
it with your favorite ZIP program and KeePass is ready to be used. Copy it to
a location of your choice (for example onto your USB stick); no
additional configuration or installation is needed.
Updating:
Download the latest portable package of KeePass, unpack it
and copy all new files over the old ones. Your configuration settings will not
be lost (the settings are stored in the KeePass.config.xml file,
which won't be overwritten, because KeePass ZIP packages don't
include a KeePass.config.xml file).
Uninstallation:
Simply delete the KeePass folder. This will leave no trace of KeePass on
your system.
In addition to Windows, KeePass 2.x runs under Mono, i.e. Linux, Mac OS X, BSD, etc.
Links to all supported packages can be found on the Downloads page.
mono-stable
, MonoFramework
,
mono-devel
or mono-2.0-devel
; see
the Mono project page,
if you are unsure which packages to install.xdotool
package.mono KeePass.exe
". Alternatively, right-click onto
the KeePass.exe
file, choose "Open with Other Application"
and type in mono
as custom command.For the last step you might want to create a shortcut
or shell script file with this command line (use an absolute path to
KeePass.exe
, if the shortcut / shell script file is in a
different location).
Clipboard:
On some systems, Mono's clipboard routines don't work properly.
In this case, install the xsel
and xdotool
packages.
If these are installed, KeePass uses them for clipboard operations.
Global Auto-Type:
In order to use global auto-type,
you need to create an appropriate system-wide hot key. This only needs to be done
manually once. KeePass performs global auto-type when it's invoked with
the --auto-type
command line option.
Some examples how to create a system-wide hot key for global auto-type, for different operating systems:
mono /YourPathToKeePass/KeePass.exe --auto-type
KeePass Auto-Type
as name
andmono /YourPathToKeePass/KeePass.exe --auto-type
gconf-editor
and click [OK].apps
→ metacity
→ keybinding_commands
.command_i
items, entermono /YourPathToKeePass/KeePass.exe --auto-type
global_keybindings
node on the left.run_command_i
item
(for example, when you've used command_5
in the previous steps,
double-click run_command_5
now) and specify the hot key of your
choice. For example, to use Ctrl+Alt+A
as hot key, you'd enter <Control><Alt>a
.Important: for global auto-type, the version of the xdotool
package
must be 2.20100818.3004 or higher! If your distribution only offers an
older version, you can download and install the latest version of the
package manually, see the xdotool
website.
Auto-Type on Wayland:
If you want to use auto-type on a system with a Wayland compositor,
see the Auto-Type on Wayland page.
Plugins:
On some Linux systems, the mono-complete
package may be
required for plugins to work properly.
TLS 1.2:
For TLS 1.2 support, Mono 4.8.0 or higher (or .NET Framework 4.5 or higher)
is required.
Although you can run KeePass 2.x more or less natively on Unix-like systems using Mono (see above), the user interface does not always look pretty. Some users therefore prefer running KeePass 2.x under Wine.
In order to run KeePass 2.x under Wine, follow these steps:
wine
.winetricks
can be used, see
WineHQ AppDB: .NET Framework 4.5.wine KeePass.exe
.Theme. By default, Wine uses the classic Windows theme. If you prefer some other theme, you can install it in 'Applications' → 'Wine' → 'Configure Wine' → tab 'Desktop Integration'. Links to themes can for instance be found on Wikipedia: Windows XP visual styles.
Auto-Type. Wine currently does not implement all Windows API functions required for auto-type, i.e. auto-type does not work when running KeePass under Wine.
In order to migrate from KeePass 1.x to 2.x, follow these steps:
If everything works fine, you can delete your old KeePass 1.x installation. The old KDB database file also isn't required anymore, but you may want to keep it as a backup.