How to delete a "Receiving Address"?

[alexaverbuch]

While getting familiar with the Bitcoin UI I created an extra "Receiving Address" but now I'd like to delete it.

Is there a way to do so?

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[ptd]

Not easily. Why do you want to delete it? It doesn't do any harm.

[alexaverbuch]

There is no urgency to delete it.
But, there is also no reason to keep it... and it's kind of "ugly" having junk data in the application

Are there any plans to update the GUI to provide the "delete" functionality?

Or is this more of a system problem? I.e. a user may delete their address before some "money" transfer has reached them, so deliver guarantees can only be provided if addresses are never deleted?

[ribuck]

... and it's kind of "ugly" having junk data in the application

All that's needed is a way to delete the unwanted receiving address from the Address Book GUI (as you can already do for sending addresses). There's no reason why the address can't remain in the database, so that any incoming transaction to that address will be accepted.

[davout]

I can understand that there should be a way to mask an address in whatever client.

But, it has to be clear to you that an address is merely a private key (not exactly, but thats a good approximation).

Sending coins to an address actually means, publicly acknowledging that *only* the person holding the private key linked to that address can spend the sent coins.

If you understand that, you'll understand that is it possible to send coins to an address that is offline, or even send coins to an address that hasn't ever been created by anyone.

If some coins were to be sent to an address that no-one has the keys to would mean they'd sit in a no man's land for pretty much ever (or until someone by incredible chance generates the right address to claim them).

[alexaverbuch]

If coins were sent to an address that no-one has the keys to they'd sit in no man's land forever

yeah that makes sense, and I can see why the "delete" feature is not present by default.

what about hiding the button by default, and allowing it to be activated by setting a certain field in the options?
when a user activates the delete button they will get a warning, which basically tells them what you just wrote here.

that way there is a way to clean up unused addresses for cases such as this.
for example, I have never used any of my unwanted addresses, nor have I informed anyone of them.

what do you think?

[davout]

I don't personnally need it.
If you really want to clean things up you can just make a new wallet with a single address, send it everything and delete the old wallet.
(And I wouldn't delete the old wallet, I'd save it on a cheap usb stick and check it ten years later to see if any coins were sent to these addresses)

[alexaverbuch]

I read through the forum and noticed at least two other users asking the same question

http://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=743.msg8208#msg8208
http://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=101.msg1134#msg1134

Does anyone know if there exists an "issue tracking" system for the Bitcoin software?

It would be nice to have a place where users can request features or report bugs

[davout]

Right now it doesn't really exist as far as I know.

The bitcoin development workflow and the protocol governance are not very mature right now in my opinion.
Also development efforts are mostly geared towards the internals, not really the GUI part.

I guess you could always open an issue on gavin's fork (https://github.com/gavinandresen/bitcoin-git), but honestly, I don't think much attention will be given to the allow-me-to-delete-an-address functionality.

You can also fork gavins fork, code that up and submit a pull request, but again, it goes against bitcoins way of doing things to delete an address, but it's no big deal anyway.

[fonzie77]

don't delete, hide them. it is as easy as that. make a button "hide adress" and one "show hidden adresses". click on an adress and click "hide adress" makes it invisible to the gui. a click on "show hidden adresses" makes all the hidden adresses visible (perhaps greyed out, so its obvious they are hidden adresses). the "show hidden adresses"-button now obviously becomes a "hide hidden adresses"-button. click on one of these hidden adresses and the "hide adress"-button becomes a "show adress" button. click on that and the adress is visible again.

i don't know my way around c, but in web dev terms this is one new database column, two toggle scripts and a few minor ui adjustments. 20mins work.

[Cryptoman]

Perhaps more useful would be folders for the addresses.  This would have utility beyond hiding unwanted addresses.  You could have folders for friends, family, merchants, and of course "junk" addresses.

[LZ]

KISS

[JA37]

How about hiding addresses that isn't used. If there are no transactions for a given address for 7 days the gui just hides it. If a transaction comes in, the address is shown again. Include a "show all" button to display all known addresses and everyone should be fine.

[davout]

How about hiding addresses that isn't used. If there are no transactions for a given address for 7 days the gui just hides it. If a transaction comes in, the address is shown again. Include a "show all" button to display all known addresses and everyone should be fine.

Go for it, you can either :
 - put a bounty up,
 - do it yourself

[occulta]

hmm, its interesting, and i would like such a 'hide' feature also

[MangoJ]

BUMP
I would like an easy way to delete or hide unwanted receiving addresses.

[jackjack]

Pywallet