I know just enough to be dangerous and am fast becoming YouTube certified. I have watched the video on running Ollama and a model from a USB drive (worked fantastically). Can you install and run LM Studio on a USB? Im not sure of the command to make it work or find the server for LM Studio and begin to work? I think you can get or work with an extension on LM Studio that can allow for real time web/internet search for a local llm and get current information rather than when the model was created. I’m not sure if this makes any sense but I hope so.
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You can run LM Studio from a USB drive, but not in the same “portable app” sense as Ollama. LM Studio doesn’t currently ship an official portable build, but users have confirmed that it can run from a USB if you manually place the executable and model folders on the drive and launch it directly from there. This matches what LM Studio users on Reddit describe — they simply copied the .exe and a models folder to the external drive and ran it without installation.
There’s also an open feature request on GitHub for a fully portable, USB‑native version of LM Studio, which confirms that the idea is possible but not officially supported yet.
Here’s the practical version of what works today:
How to run LM Studio from a USB (current best method)
- Download LM Studio normally on any machine.
- Go to the LM Studio installation folder and copy:
- LM Studio.exe
- the models folder (or create a new one on the USB)
- Place both on your USB drive in a folder like:
USB:/LMStudioPortable/ - Run LM Studio.exe directly from the USB.
- Users report this works because LM Studio doesn’t require a deep system install.
Important:
You must point LM Studio’s “Model Directory” setting to the models folder on the USB.
Running LM Studio headless (server mode)
LM Studio now has a headless/server component called llmster, which can be run portably on Linux or Windows.
This is the closest thing to a true “portable LM Studio server.”
You can install it with:
Windows:
irm https://lmstudio.ai/install.ps1 | iex
Mac/Linux:
curl -fsSL https://lmstudio.ai/install.sh | bash
Once installed, you can move the binary to your USB and run it from there.
About real‑time web search extensions
LM Studio itself doesn’t include built‑in live internet search, but you can add it through:
- Plugins/extensions (community‑made)
- Tools via the LM Studio API
- External scripts that call a search API and feed results into the model
This is similar to how people add “web search” to local LLMs in general.
If you want the simplest portable option
Right now, the most reliable fully‑portable USB solution is llamafile, which is what the YouTube video you watched was demonstrating. It’s designed specifically for “no install, run from USB” usage.
LM Studio is almost portable, but not officially packaged that way yet.
Hope that this is helpful.
Regards Antony.
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It was VERY helpful. Worked!!! 
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