Bitcoin Forum

Hi,

When I import all private keys from one wallet to another, is it safe/advisable to delete the old wallet?

   - bitaddress.org: "Satoshi advised that one should never delete a wallet."


Thanks

Safe: Yes.
Advisable: No, unless you have other backups of the new wallet (or alternatively this one).

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I have several backup versions of all of my wallets, even those not in use anymore. Best practice (if possible) is to never delete them.

Its advised for security reasons if you know what to do. But if you imported all private keys to new wallet, you could delete safely old one.
Remember about need of backups. That is important.

Thank-you both for your replies.

Feel free to remove it, but first make sure you have at least one, or preferably several, backup that you know is working. If possible, you backups should be stored offline in another physical location (maybe an encrypted flash drive in a bank vault). How much time you should spend on your backups depends on how many bitcoins you have and how important they are to you.

In blockchain.info, the wallets can be put on a archive especially the not used address. You can unarchive that wallet anytime to check it. But I didn't  see a delete wallet address there.

If you are going t delete it then make sure you have backups since it is very easy to think you have everything you need and suddenly you realize you made a mistake, most of the time it is not serious but in bitcoin a mistake can cost you lots of money.

Satoshi made a sound advise. And USB sticks come to the rescue, I have destroyed wallet copies on my laptop utilizing some secure delete procedure (program that first overwrites file with random garbage data) but still store them. On a crappy old stick that might still work, or might not work at all. The older sticks that got replaced with higher capacity newer ones.

On the long term the amount of accidentially lost BTCs should approach zero.

If you do delete, just keep in mind that it could possibly be recovered unless you do a secure delete. So if you intend to continue using those addresses, be careful what you do with the drive that was storing the wallet.

You never know when bitcoin santa will come along and drop a few coins into your basket.

Best to keep around and check from time to time.

Well, its safe if you have a backup wallet from it and assure to delete so that you won't get confused in multiple wallets but my recommendations are you gotta put the details that you input in the last wallet that your in and also be wise on choosing a wallet maybe they will activate it once more or something..

That is true, keeping old addresses could come in handy if coins ever got sent to them for some reason. Although, I don't think I've gotten any mysterious transactions to any of my addresses. But keeping it around or at least a backup of it is probably a good idea nonetheless.

On that account it would be advised to generate some thousands of fresh adresses each day! Just for a fat fingered santa mistyping a transfer target.
But if you know the math about exponents on a base ten your hopes may dwindle.

Maybe instead of deleting it you should back up the wallet file and all keys and anything else. Just keep it where you normally keep your backups. Make sure it's offline and do not use a USB eventually the memory fades because it is flash memory. A paper wallet maybe too. Then just keep it just in case. Then make your new wallet and repeat the process for it as you should do when making or using any wallet with any coin.

If you are going to delete it from your hard drive it is a good idea to keep a backup so if for some reason you forgot something you could still get access to the old wallet.

If you want to be safe; delete the wallet first, burn the hard-disk after. Like the others said, your btc wallet can be recovered later. If you lose the hdd somehow that might be a problem for you.

Let's say you formatted your laptop and decided to sell it. The new owner might do some tricks on your old laptop. You'll be sorry if he does. :)