Just like the desktop version, it offers excellent support for Raspberry Pi Pico and ESP32 , allowing you to flash and code microcontrollers from any PC. How to Set Up Thonny Portable

: You can run the IDE immediately by executing thonny.exe (Windows) or the bin/thonny script (Linux) directly from a removable drive.

The portable nature also facilitates in a novel way. An instructor can ask students to submit not just a .py file, but an entire Thonny Portable folder on a USB drive. The instructor then runs the student’s exact environment, complete with the specific library versions and breakpoints the student used, to understand not just the output but the process and debugging steps.

While Thonny Portable is incredibly versatile, it is primarily designed for . While you can run Thonny on Linux and macOS, the "portable" single-folder experience is most seamless on Windows. Additionally, because it runs off a USB drive, performance may be slightly slower than an SSD-installed version depending on your drive's read/write speeds.