Bitcoin Forum

I have an unencrypted wallet.dat file from ages ago that I encrypted manually with gpg and I'd like to send the coins elsewhere. I would like to avoid setting up a full node. Is it possible to just import the wallet.dat to some modern client and sign and broadcast a transaction? Which clients exist that would allow me to do that?

You can use pywallet (https://github.com/jackjack-jj/pywallet) to dump the private keys and then import them to multibit or you can import the wallet file into blockchain.info (https://blockchain.info/wallet/import-wallet).

You should be able to import the old wallet into whatever client you're using now without much trouble. If you just want to sweep the keys and not import the addresses, you can make a backup of your current wallet, import the old wallet, send the coins to an address in your current wallet, and restore your current wallet from the backup. As far as I know, all of the popular wallets support this, with the possible exception of some web wallets. If you don't want to mess with swapping wallets around, then you can use pywallet to extract the keys from your old wallet and sweep or import them into your current wallet.

the easiest and quickest way might be to send the wallet to a trust escrow person and have them load the wallet and send the address you specific. it might cost you a small fee depending on who you use.

What? Just send the coins yourself, why would you use an escrow service for this? How is that even easy and quick?

Exactly. Using an escrow service would be slower and more difficult, not to mention less secure. As I mentioned, the easiest way to send the coins is simply to temporarily swap the old wallet with the current one, though there are other options (such as dumping the keys from the old wallet via pywallet and importing them into the current one) that may be preferable depending on the situation.

Aside from what I removed, this should be the best option if you don't want your coins to be compromised. Keep the wallet offline and decrypt it and extract the private keys from there. You could possibly just use Bitcoin Core to extract the keys if you're not familiar with pywallet, as you should be able to use command lines without having it synced. From there I'd suggest you import it into Electrum/Multibit and send them from there to your main wallet that you want them in.

I did the pywallet/Multibit thing (on a backup Linux laptop that's never been used much) and it worked great. Thanks for everyone who responded.

No problemo. Nice to see a good resolution to these problems for once - too many stories about deleted/destroyed HDDs with no chance of recovery.

You can use blockchain.info to import and send the balance to some other address.

Or You can use electrum to do the same

Solution is simple with deleted/destroyed HDDs, lol, just have multiple backups,
i mean, what are the chances that they will all get destroyed or corrupted?

I would never store bigger amounts on an online wallet, no matter how secure they claim it to be.