Bitcoin Forum

Hi, I know the risk when I delete my wallet.dat, all my privkeys are gone if they are not backuped. But on empty wallets it's no problem to delete the wallet.dat because there aren't any funds on it.

My question is, when I delete the wallet.dat, will Bitcoin Core generate a new one for me or will there be thousands of error messages ?

Greetings Emil

Yes. You will be able to create a new one.
You can create as much wallet files as you wish.

And if you have just created a wallet for testing purpose and didn't use any address, you can safely delete it without running any risks (even though just renaming it wouldn't hurt).

Bitcoin Core automatically creates a new wallet file if one does not already exist.

I wouldn't risk it personally. It's better to always rename them, add in a number or something, for example the date of the last received transaction, to know if it's an up to date wallet or not. Satoshi always advised to never delete wallet files. It's better to have a mess of different wallet.dat files renamed than accidentally deleting a wallet file with some private keys in it. Just change the extension for example (wallet.1, wallet.2, wallet.3...) and keep it all.

The wallet checks after every start if there is a wallet file and creates a new one if  necessary. It also creates many private keys and addresses (I think about hundred on the latest release).

So, if you just don't need the wallet, you can remove it.

If you already used the wallet, then make sure you have proper backups from the wallet.dat and the private keys (watch out for change addresses, they can also hold coins).

Like others have already explained. Your wallet will re-sync and reverify everything on startup if the DAT file is messed with. If you want to double check simply move the dat or rename it and see what happens. Make your own mistakes and learn. Good luck

Core won't resync/reverify anything upon deletion of the wallet.dat.
There is no reason to do so. If you remove your wallet.dat, core will generate a new one.
Syncing/Verifying is only necessary if (1) blocks are corrupted or (2) the chainstate contains errors. Not upon creating a new wallet file.




This remembers me of a quote from Otto von Bismarck:

I don't see a reason to make mistakes if dozens of people already have made them.
Visiting this forum and asking for an advice is a way better way of learning something than to make mistakes and trying to repair them afterwards.

Dear Bob,

If you think making your own mistakes and learning from them is "foolish" then you are calling all of us old-timers fools. Back when I started most of these "new" problems didn't even exist. I guess it all boils down to the differences between sheep and pioneers. Dear bob, the whole point of making your own mistake is to learn from them so you remember what your mistakes were. If learning from other's mistakes just by reading or watching them were enough then the world would be overrun with doctors and lawyers.

As far as OP's problem is considered I do believe this issue has been solved and I would request OP to lock this thread.

Does anyone happen to know if the folder that gets created when you download Bitcoin Core Wallet, gets deleted when the wallet/program is uninstalled? Or is it archived (in which the library folder is still there with the wallet.dat file in there)?

All your wallets files are stored in your hard drive.
Below is the location of bitcoin core wallets files on Windows, Linux and Mac respectively.


Windows:

Linux:

Mac:

Visit the link below for more information.
https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Data_directory

your folder won't be deleted if you uninstalled core. when you install a new core, the program will direct you to the old bitcoin folder.

I'm not sure, maybe do you want to clean leftover files? If so, after uninstalled, go to %appdata% and go to %programfiles% you will find the app bitcoin folder also. the file still also on Windows Registry > HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software