In this Instructable, I will be showing you how you can change some simple settings in the Minecraft launcher so that all of your Minecraft data can be saved to a removeable USB drive. You may be wondering why anyone would want to do something like this, and the answer is simple. You may be on a school computer where you can't download files or access online games, Minecraft USB will run. You may be going to a friend's house and want to show Minecraft to them, just plug in the USB and you are ready to go. You may simply be wanting to play Minecraft on someone elses computer for whatever reason without leaving evidence that you did, Insert USB and have fun!

Thank you for reading this Instructable and let me know in the comments if you have any questions about anything I did in this Instructable.

Step 1: Step 1: Downloading Minecraft

So, assuming you have already purchased Minecraft, you are going to want to head over to the Minecraft Homepage. Once you are at the homepage, you will see a Log In button on the top right side of the page. Click this button and fill in your login info. After you have logged in, hit the Orange download button and you will see a large page full of text. This tutorial is based on Windows, so the file you download will differ if you are on Mac OSX or if you are on Linux. Click the Minecraft.exe blue tinted text to downoad the file.

Step 2: Step 2: Move and Launch Minecraft

Ok, so you have now downloaded the Minecraft.exe file. Now, you should move that file to your USB drive. To do that, find the file that you downloaded and then drag it onto your usb drive folder. You should see that now there is a Minecraft.exe file on your USB drive. Double click that and you will be met with a "Downloading Runtime" Dialogue. This is normal, and will only take a few minutes to download. After it is downloaded, you will see "Setting Up Runtime" This is normal as well, and will likely take longer than downloading did. It may seem like nothing is going on, but just wait and trust me. I did not think anything was going on because it was taking so long to set up the runtime so I cancelled and corrupted the Minecraft file and had to re-download it.

Step 3: Step 3: Configuring the Launcher

Once the launcher is up and running, you may be asked to log in to your Minecraft account. Do this and you will now be met with a page similar to the one shown in the first picture. What you are going to want to do now is click the "Edit Profile" button that I have circled in the second picture. This will display a menu as shown in the third picture. There are a couple changes that we need to make in order for the launcher to know that we want the files stored on a USB drive instead of the default directory. The first thing we need to change is the Game Directory. This box will be unchecked by default, so you will need to check it and then you will need to enter into the box the drive name of your USB drive followed by :/.minecraft, such as I did in the fourth picture. The letter name of your drive will likely differ from mine because I have multiple drives in use at once. The next step that you will want to do is tell the launcher to use the Runtime that it set up in the directory of the USB drive. This step is not always necessary, but it is more reliable if you tick the box beside "Executable" Under the Java Settings area of the profile editor menu. The last thing we are going to want to change on this menu is the name of the profile. You can call this whatever you want, but I would recommend changing it to something with USB in the name so that you can tell it apart from other profiles that may be on your computer or on another computer you are using this USB drive on. After you have done all of this, click the Save profile button and you are ready to play.

Step 4: Step 4: Enjoy!

Now, all you have to do is make sure that your USB profile is selected, and click the "Play" button. After this, you will be loading Minecraft straight from your USB drive! You can see in the third picture that all of your Minecraft files are saved to the USB drive, so you can play this from any computer without worrying about leaving files behind.