Bitcoin Forum

Dear all,

I have an old wallet.dat from 2011.
How to open an old wallet best?

When I use latest bitcoin core release, i get error dialog that the wallet needs to be rewritten and app restarted.
After restart, the wallet is empty.

Thanks in advance and happy new year.
Stay safe!

You may try older Bitcoin Core application (https://bitcoin.org/en/version-history) but probably the faster solution is to use pywallet (*1) script to extract private key and then use more user-friendly program (like for example Electrum).

*1 https://pypi.org/project/pywallet/
Read this: https://cryptomining-blog.com/9488-how-to-easily-recover-old-wallet-dat-private-keys-with-pywallet/

When you say "empty", do you mean the balance is zero but there are transactions listed? ??? Or do you mean that there is no transaction history showing either?

Also, is your Bitcoin Core actually fully synced? ???

click tab window > receiving address then scanning the address into bitcoin explorer - https://blockchair.com/bitcoin if your balance still there, try to dumpprivkey in the console then import it into electrum.

It is hard to work with so little information..

Please do what ETFbitcoin said and read: [READ BEFORE POSTING] Tech Support Help Request Format (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1741772.0).
Include all the relevant information (e.g. your OS and the version of core you are using).

Further.. please clarify what you mean with empty. No balance? No history?


And always make sure to have multiple backups of your wallet file and maybe try opening it with old versions of bitcoin core.


And just to make sure.. you didn't buy/download that wallet file or got it from someone else, right?
Lately there are lots of people who buy wallet files, just to find out that every single seller is a scammer manipulating those wallet files to show an amount inside which does not exist.