Bitcoin Forum

I have bitcoin-qt running on 1 laptop and multibit on a second laptop.

If I import the wallet.dat file from bitcoin-qt on laptop 1 into multibit on laptop 2, will my btc then show up in multibit on laptop 2?

Thanks in advance for anyone who advises on this.

The problem is that the change addresses won't stay synced.  I'd recommend using the same client on each computer if you want to use the same addresses on both.

That isn't a problem because I am going to delete bitcoin-qt once I no longer need it.

So here I am and I still need my question answered.

I haven't tried duplicating a wallet like that myself, but I would expect MultiBit will show the balances for your addresses as soon as it's synchronized (indicated at the bottom of the MultiBit window). It won't know or care that another client is using the same private keys, as long as you resolve the conflict before spending anything.

It's great that you bring this up, for it's the reason I asked. After two hours of google searching, all I could find was confusing & complicated info that said we had to import our keys and using the command line in bitcoin-qt. And this seemed to me to be a huuuuuge waste of time. why not just import the wallet? And them boom you're done.

which is why I posted in here. If it can be done that easy then why all the complicated explanations everywhere and with no mention of doing it this way?

It reminds me of when I first started using linux. OMG the hoops and the hassles everyone advises you to go through when all you had to do was to run one open-source and freely available program that would do that for you in 3-clicks. This pendrive linux program has been available for years and only just recently is the linux community becoming aware of it.

anyhow, I don't want to make a mistake and lose my btc. Would someone pls tell me what will happen by importing my wallet to multibit?

thank you!

I didn't mean to imply you can easily import a Bitcoin-Qt wallet into MultiBit. I assumed you already had a means of doing that. Your options are:

1. Export your private keys from Bitcoin-Qt, then import them into MultiBit. This isn't the easiest way, but it keeps everything local. The export is done through Bitcoin-Qt's console or using pywallet (https://github.com/jackjack-jj/pywallet (https://github.com/jackjack-jj/pywallet)). MultiBit has more info about the import here: http://multibit.org/help_importASingleKey.html (http://multibit.org/help_importASingleKey.html)

2. Upload your Bitcoin-Qt wallet.dat to Blockchain.info, then download a backup from there. Then you'll have a file format that MultiBit will easily import. To upload your wallet.dat, go to https://blockchain.info/wallet/import-wallet (https://blockchain.info/wallet/import-wallet), and drag the file into the browser. I've tested this, and it's worked smoothly every time. I'd recommend this approach just for its simplicity.

There's another alternative to trying to migrate the wallet. You can set up a new wallet in MultiBit, and send your Bitcoins from your Bitcoin-Qt addresses to one or more of your new MultiBit addresses. This is in most respects the simplest, cleanest approach.

Come on man, importing a wallet couldn't be any simpler. And I don't want to do what you suggested instead for reasons that I don't want to go into because then the thread goes off into other directions and I never get my question answered.

Again, will someone please tell me exactly and completely straight-up....what will happen if I import that wallet?

That was the first answer I gave you. MultiBit will reflect the balances of your addresses as soon as it has finished synchronizing.

Thank you orymh.

I just wanted to be sure on this.

And now I feel safe to ask the second part of my question. lol

Hey sorry I just didn't want to complicate things.

I have a third pc, my destop with bitcoin-qt on it and it has a small sum of btc. After importing my wallet from the 1st laptop to the 2nd laptop, can i then safely import the wallet from my 3rd pc into multibit on the 2nd laptop? Note: this will mean that two different wallets have been imported. Will that muck anything up?


Thanks again!

To answer this with any confidence, I do need to know which import method you're using. If you're importing private keys, then everything will remain comfortably un-mucked: you'll have all the private keys from each original wallet in one wallet in MultiBit (unless you chose to create a second wallet in MultiBit for the second import, in which case you're still fine, with two separate wallets managed by MultiBit).

I am not importing "keys" or keyfiles. I am importing the wallet. Specifically, wallet.dat.

Now from what I've read it appears to me that those keys are possibly in the wallet. and from that multibit might extract them. I don't know. So  to be clear.

The only thing I am talking about doing is importing one file and that file is wallet.dat.

How are you importing wallet.dat into MultiBit? Do you have it in a .json file, or what? MultiBit can't just open a wallet.dat file, unless there's a trick I don't know, in which case please share, because that would be a very useful trick.

Ok, importing isn't the word I should have used. Sorry, I am new at this. However, you can click on "file" then select "open wallet" and you can open that wallet.

And i don't know what opening that wallet does but if it doesn't import the btc that's in it, then why would anyone want to open it in the first place?

Thus i am here with my questions.

what will opening that wallet do?

Aha, now I get why we aren't understanding each other! MultiBit can only open MultiBit-native wallet files (extension .wallet) and .json files, which can be generated by a blockchain.info backup. If you use Open Wallet and try to open wallet.dat, you'll get a message across the bottom of the window saying "Could not load the wallet file blah blah blah", and that's all that will happen. I know because I just tried it. You really do have to do one of those other pain in the ass things to get your BTC from your Bitcoin-Qt wallet to a MultiBit wallet.

OMG. LOL! that's sucks, but thanks for clearing this up for me!!!!

Just send all your coins to your multibit wallet, it'll be much safer and easier.

Yeah, less hassle and if you have more than 0.01 BTC then you won't need to pay any fees. Just set the fees to zero in the settings.