Bitcoin Forum

I have the Electrum wallet on my PC and wondered what happens if my PC dies for some reason? Is there a way to back up the information? I'm not very technical.

You can copy the data directory onto a separate medium. there should be a folder called electrum_data or wallet_data, with a file in it called default_wallet (or the name of your wallet).

Copy the whole directory or just that file. It's good to remember you need to remember the SEED with this as this is what is used to unlock the encryption on this file.

That's why the word backup was invented, even the device was stolen or broke once you have the proper backup and store it in a safe place, store it offline Then you can recover those coins. By saving the 12 phrase/seed of Electrum and/or you have the copy of wallet.dat file, which you can find on the folder of Electrum/wallet/(here).

All you really need is your seed assuming you have a seed based wallet setup in Electrum. You can use the seed to recreate your wallet on any new PC.

Assuming you are using a conventional wallet in Electrum I highly recommend using your SEED as a backup vs backing up the wallet file itself.  Why?  There have been numerous folks and threads here over the years where people forget their wallet password.  If you have a password on your wallet file it encrypts the seed and stuff.  In other words you can have my wallet file all you want, but if you don't know my password you basically have NOTHING pure and simple.  Before you think it won't happen to you just consider that if you have a significantly "tough" password and don't use it often how its possible to jumble something in your mind.  If its tough enough you need to write it down, then at that point you may as well write down the SEED and be done with it.  You have been warned, LOL!

Thanks guys for your answers. I have the SEED written down so I will simply keep that safe (offline) and all should be well :)

Well if your pc was die or shutdown you can be still get your hdd and use enclosure to open it to other pc and find the wallet.dat in your hdd once you just not backup your wallet seeds or private keys this is a good alternative once you forgot to backup your wallet and accidentally your pc die..
But always make sure that you backup your wallet not only your hdd drive D: you should make it rar with encrypted password and upload to your own cloud files like in google drive to backup all of your files.. if your pc was formatted you can download your backup and recover your electrum wallet..

If the PC fails due to crashing (Even if the PC recovers from it) the data can still be lost so it does need backing up.


The seed should be sufficient to recover your wallet so that's good.