Howto: Sync settings between multiple TweetDeck installs on Windows

I've been using Thwirl for a long time as my Twitter client, and I was very happy with it. Then, all of a sudden, it seemed like the rest of the world had gone mad and started talking about TweetDeck.


I guess everyone knows about TweetDeck by now, but in short it's an enhanced Twitter client that allows split your data stream into smaller pieces. Groups, searches and other goodies are a part of the main interface, making it easy to administer larger amounts of twitter data. While this is the strength of TweetDeck, it's in some ways also it's weakness. Compared to other clients it takes up a lot more screen estate, but the thing that bugged me most was that currently there is no real easy way to keep your groups and other settings synchronized between different installs on different computers. Maintaining your user groups etc. on a computer by computer basis just isn't fun.


Thanks to @gabvirtualworld and @TweetDeck I found out that the configuration and settings TweetDeck uses is located in c:\users\[username]\AppData\Roaming\TweetDeckFast.[random string]\Local Store\ (In Vista/Server 2008. XP and others hav a slightly different path). In that directory there are two files that are of interest:

  • preferences_[twitter_username].xml
  • td_26_[twitter_username].db

If you set up TweetDeck on one computer, then copy those files with you to a new computer your get to transfer your current settings. You still end up with two separate installations to maintain though, but you do get to transfer your setup from one to another.


I wasn't happy with that either, hard to please I know, so I set out to find a way to have those files located at one place and have several TweetDeck installs point to the same ones.


Enter DropBox. DropBox lets you have a central storage for files and have that area syncronized to your local computer(s). I run several applications from my DropBox space already, like Putty and KeePass, so I figured there had to be a way that I could utilize DropBox for my TweetDeck configuration synchronization needs. Long story short; Yes. You can use DropBox for this, and still keep TweetDeck happy.


This is where the magic happens:

Sorry, but there is no magic, but it does work. The steps required are the following:

  1. 1. Stop TweetDeck
  3. 2. Move your preferences_[twitter_username].xml and td_26_[twitter_username].db from your initial "master" TweetDeck install, to a new folder on DropBox. I chose apps/TweetDeck
  4. 3. Start a command prompt, and navigate to the c:\users\\AppData\Roaming\TweetDeckFast.[random string]\Local Store folder and run the following commands: 
    mklink td_26_[twitter_username].db "[your path]\My Dropbox\Apps\TweetDeck\td_26_[twitter_username.db"
mklink preferences_[twitter_username].xml "[your path]\My Dropbox\Apps\TweetDeck\preferences_[twitter_username].xml"
  6. Repeat step 3 on any other machines you want to keep syncronized

The trick here is the mklink command. This creates a NTFS based symlink on your filesystem, that pretty much works the same way as a Linux symlink. In essence what you end up doing here is making symbolic links for the files that TweetDesk stores it's configuration in, thus making the different installs use the same set of files. Stroring it on your DropBox install makes it available for all the computers.


Of course, there is a downside to doing this and that is if you keep TweetDeck running on several computers at the same time. If you do that, you will end up with save conflicts in your DropBox, but you should avoid running Twitter clients on several computers at the same time anyway to avoid going over the rate limits in the Twitter API.

January 9, 2009 at 12:23pm | 13 Comments
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13 Comments so far

  1. Andy, on January 13, 2009 at 8:23pm, said:

    Exactly what I needed! Thanks for posting this!

    FYI, if running Windows XP, check out Junction Link Magic (http://www.rekenwonder.com/linkmagic.htm) to create the directory link. Also, Windows Live Mesh works essentially the same as DropBox if you already have that installed.

    Edit Comment

  2. Christian Mohn (h0bbel), on January 16, 2009 at 12:40am, said:

    @Andy: Great that you found it useful!

    Edit Comment

  3. Isaac, on February 9, 2009 at 5:31pm, said:

    Windows XP users...

    Download Junction (http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/bb896768.aspx), extract to known location.

    CUT, don't copy the contents of the TweetDeck local store folder, which for xp is located at:

    "C:\Documents and Settings\[user]\Application Data\[full tweetdeck directory]\Local Store"

    Paste the local data into the new, synced location for the TweetDeck "Local Store" folder.

    Run command prompt, navigate to the folder containing "junction.exe", and run the following command:

    junction "[local store directory that we used above]" "[new local store folder]"

    Bam! Now you don't need to sync individual files either.

    Edit Comment

  4. All your TweetDeck questions answered | richardbarley.com, on February 26, 2009 at 12:32pm, said:

    ...olution to this at present, but one is planned and will hopefully be with us soon.
    In the meantime, here’s a great article by Christian Mohn (h0bbel) that seems to giv...

    Edit Comment

  5. Sean Butler, on February 26, 2009 at 5:37pm, said:

    I was able to get his working across two computers, one imac/desktop and one windows laptop...

    On the mac move the Local Store folder to dropbox, and then in the following directory

    ~/Library/Preferences/TweetDeckFast.[random string]/

    issue this command:

    ln -s ~/Dropbox/AppData/TweetDeck/Local\ Store Local\ Store

    Then on windows xp, follow the prior post... Thouhg I used the gui "link shell extension" to create the junction, rather than the junction.exe command line too, though that of course works too...

    Edit Comment

  6. Ronald Widha, on March 3, 2009 at 7:41pm, said:

    On tweetdeck 0.22b, it carries all my preferences to the other computer except for group views. very strange.

    Btw, I'm using LiveMesh as oppose to DropBox. Work like a charm!

    Thanks.

    Edit Comment

  7. Ali Kuru, on March 15, 2009 at 5:27pm, said:

    Is there a way to create symlinks (or hard links) in FAT volumes?

    Edit Comment

  8. Christian Mohn (h0bbel), on March 15, 2009 at 11:11pm, said:

    @Ali Kuru: Not that I'm aware of. Why would you use FAT?

    Edit Comment

  9. Ali Kuru, on March 16, 2009 at 11:57am, said:

    @Christian Mohn: My computers are kinda old and FAT, with being faster that its more modern alternatives, perform well on them. Also, I don't need encryption or large file support.

    Quick tip: Users can find their application data folder by Start > Run > %appdata% > Return.

    Edit Comment

  10. at shim34, on March 31, 2009 at 6:51pm, said:

    Thanx for the post. It was very helpful when setting up my new comp.

    As far as syncing multiple comps goes. im not familiar with dropbox. do u think it would work w/ windows live sync (formerly foldershare)?

    Edit Comment

  11. Christian Mohn (h0bbel), on March 31, 2009 at 10:08pm, said:

    @at shim34: I don't have any experience with Live Folders at all, but as long as they map their stuff inside a "normal" Windows directory, like DropBox does, it should work the same.

    Edit Comment

  12. Gary, on June 9, 2009 at 8:57pm, said:

    Brilliant! Thanks!

    Edit Comment

  13. Synchronize Tweetdeck between Windows and Linux « Philipp Andre's Blog, on May 13, 2010 at 12:37am, said:

    ...ems, I was looking for an solution.
    A really smart solution has been published by Christian Mohn on h0bbel.p0ggel.org. This solution uses DropBox to...

    Edit Comment

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