Bitcoin Forum

Other => Beginners & Help => Topic started by: Alpaca Bob on August 07, 2013, 10:19:19 AM



Title: Newbie question: how do I backup my QT wallet?
Post by: Alpaca Bob on August 07, 2013, 10:19:19 AM
I've been using bitcoin for a little while, but have only used online wallets since I'm not exactly technical.  Time to change that, but not without at least backing up my wallet.

Anyone?


Title: Re: Newbie question: how do I backup my QT wallet?
Post by: infobiactrader on August 12, 2013, 10:09:03 AM
As in backing up the wallet.dat file in the bitcoin-qt client? I'm not 100% sure but I think that if you just click to the receive tab, it gives you the option to export the wallet.  Have you already set up qt?


Title: Re: Newbie question: how do I backup my QT wallet?
Post by: Yash on August 12, 2013, 10:53:34 AM
I have the same issue here, i tried exporting the wallet to a .dat file and it worked, but after trying a few other wallet clients, the import of a wallet with a .dat extension is not available :(


Title: Re: Newbie question: how do I backup my QT wallet?
Post by: gongomanny on August 12, 2013, 11:04:42 AM
I have the same issue here, i tried exporting the wallet to a .dat file and it worked, but after trying a few other wallet clients, the import of a wallet with a .dat extension is not available :(

It is meant in Bitcoin-QT as backup. If you loose your HDD, you may import the wallet.dat manually to Bitcoin-QT


Title: Re: Newbie question: how do I backup my QT wallet?
Post by: HeroC on August 12, 2013, 02:48:57 PM
Put wallet.dat in a safe place, then if you computer gets corrupted, just use the backup.


Title: Re: Newbie question: how do I backup my QT wallet?
Post by: Alpaca Bob on August 12, 2013, 02:49:21 PM
Yeah I finally found wallet.dat, although it wasn't easy on ubuntu.

Simply copying the wallet.dat file should suffice, right? So if my computer crashes or whatever, it's just a matter of downloading qt again, and replacing the new wallet.dat with the backed up version?

No need to add extra encryption or anything like that? The regular password encryption in QT will do fine yeah?

Thanks.


Title: Re: Newbie question: how do I backup my QT wallet?
Post by: DannyHamilton on August 12, 2013, 02:52:27 PM
To back up your Bitcoin-Qt wallet, you can click on the "File" menu where you should see an option to "Backup Wallet".  That will give you the opportunity to save a copy of your wallet to a location of your choice (USB drive, external hard drive, filename on your desktop that you can copy elsewhere, etc).  If you've encrypted your wallet with a password, then this backup will also be encrypted.  This means you need to keep track of both the wallet backup file AND the password you were using at the time that you created the backup.


Title: Re: Newbie question: how do I backup my QT wallet?
Post by: Alpaca Bob on August 12, 2013, 03:06:54 PM
Ah got it. What's the difference with backing up wallet.dat? I'm guessing none, just an easier way to do it?


Title: Re: Newbie question: how do I backup my QT wallet?
Post by: over1977v on August 12, 2013, 03:15:56 PM
Ah got it. What's the difference with backing up wallet.dat? I'm guessing none, just an easier way to do it?

None. It just copy wallet.dat to a destination you select


Title: Re: Newbie question: how do I backup my QT wallet?
Post by: TheMuffinMan on August 12, 2013, 03:22:52 PM
There should be a simple option there for backing up, but remember that your backups won't be valid if you were to encrypt your wallet and use it there after