Bitcoin Forum

How can you tell whether it is encrypted or not?. Thanks.

Bitcoin Core encrypts keys individually, i.e. the entire file is not encrypted. Each encrypted key is the roughly the same length, as are most other pieces of data in the wallet. You can tell if it is corrupted by looking at the unencrypted data and seeing if that looks corrupted. If keys themselves are corrupted, then you can't tell until you try decrypting them.

Every so often it will say the word key when looking at it via notepad, is that a good sign?.

Yes. You should also see the strings version, ckey, mkey, minversion, pool, keymeta, hdchain, etc. These strings mark what type of entry a key-value pair is. You can also use BDB's db_dump utility to see what the key-pairs are.

Am I right in saying that if it just says key then that is a private key. Thanks for taking the time to reply.

Yes, things that contain key at the beginning of the key-value pair are usually followed by the public key as the remainder of the key part of the key-value pair, and the value is usually the private key. However some things do contain the word key but aren't actually keys, like keymeta.

No. Please don't post if you don't know what you are talking about.

The Bitcoin Core wallet files do not store keys in Wallet Import Format; WIF is not the only format for private keys. It is far more efficient to store things in binary in a different format that is not human readable.