Multiple Users/Data Directories

There are three ways to use multiple users with BitPim.

Multiple users at the operating system level (recommended)

BitPim stores its settings for the current user. If you have multiple phones and users, and login to your operating system as separate users, then it will work fine. (On Windows XP, use the windows key together with L to switch users). This is the recommended way of doing things and requires no extra configuration.

One user at the operating system level, sharing phone data

BitPim is designed to allow sharing of phone data across multiple phones. You can just connect and use multiple phones without further configuration. This will effectively merge the information across the phones.

In future releases we expect to use categories to limit what gets put on each phone.

One user at the operating system level, seperate phone data

If you only login to your computer as one user, but would like to have separate BitPim data settings for multiple phones, then you will need to tell BitPim either the data directory name or the configuration file name upon initialization.

BitPim stores all of its settings in a configuration file with a default name of .bitpim. The name of the current data directory and configuration file are displayed in the settings dialog. To specify a different data directory, you can use the following command:

bitpim -d [data dir name]

To specify a different configuration file to use, use the following command:

bitpim -c [config file name]

In Windows, files with extension .bitpim are associated with the BitPim program, ie, you can double-click on such a file to launch BitPim using that file as the configuration file. As a result, to use a different data directory, Windows users can simply double-click on the associated configuration file located in that data directory.

To create and use a new BitPim data directory, Windows users can do the following steps:

  1. Create a new data directory.

  2. In that data directory, create an empty file named .bitpim

  3. Double-click on the .bitpim file to launch BitPim using the new configuration file and data directory.

If you want to create and use a new BitPim data directory, but also want to maintain previous BitPim settings, you can do the following steps:

  1. Create a new data directory.

  2. Copy the previous BitPim configuration file to the new data directory.

  3. Double-click on the copied configuration file in the new data directory.

You can also drag out the .bitpim file from a data directory with your right mouse button and drop it onto your desktop or into your menus. When prompted say that you want to create a shortcut.

Additionally, BitPim automates the above process via the Create New BitPim Data Storage wizard.

Previous: Backups   Up: Howtos   Next: Import Calendar Data  

BitPim Online Help built 17 January 2010