Bitcoin Forum

Hi,

I have a few coins on old Mac with an old version of Bitcoin Core, this can no longer sync and the Mac has run out of space!

I have a newer Mac with the latest Bitcoin core which is currently syncing with the network and downloading the blockchain (only a year to go!)

I want to safely move coins from the old Mac to the new Mac.

What is my safest route?

1. Simply send the coins from the old mac to the new Mac by sending coins to the new wallet - but the old blockchain is very out of date and I can't clear enough space to allow it to catch up.
2. Copy the wallet.dat file from the old mac to the new mac - is it ok to do this regardless of the different versions of the Bitcoin Core wallet? e.g. can I take a wallet from a 0.10 client and use it in a 0.13 client? Has the format of the wallet remained the same?

Thanks.

It doesn't matter if the wallet is not up to date in order to send coins and I'm pretty sure that the old wallet can also be copied to the newer version and should work fine (maybe try that first as you can always go back to the other approach if that fails).

Sending the coins is not a good solution. You'd still need the old Mac to sync for the transaction to go through.
So I advise to backup the wallet on the old Mac and copy that backup onto the new Mac. This way you will also have the old addresses, you never know when that comes handy.

Incorrect information (bought account or you just don't know what you are posting about?).***


As I recommended try the old wallet on the new installation first.


*** (this is why I have basically stopped using this forum)

You should enable pruning. This will delete the vast majority of the historical blockchain and free up a lot of space for you. Just add this line to the bitcoin.conf file:

This is sane advice if you want to keep using the initial installation.

As far as i know, there are a couple working sollutions you could use:

• depending on the version of the wallet on your mac, you could be able to start the wallet in pruning mode... This way, 3 Gb of space is enough (i do think it takes a long time, since iirc, it needs to resync completely)
• you could export the private keys for all addresses containing coins (including change addresses), and import them into your other wallet
• Like said before, you could replace the wallet.dat on your new computer by the wallet.dat from the old one

Whatever you do, make sure you have a recent backup of your wallet.dat (both the old one, and the new one). The old one probably isn't deterministic, so an older backup might not do...

EDIT: when i finished typing, i saw 2 of my 3 sollutions were already posted while i was typing (sorry)  :-[

I use light wallets for some time now, but last time I played with Core it didn't let me send if it was not synced.
At least this is what I remember. Maybe one of the days I'll fire up the Core because what you say is strange to me.
EDIT: I was wrong. Crossed it out. Sorry.


You recommended copy. I recommended backup. I feel like it's a plus, since with backup you know for sure where the correct wallet is copied, to avoid surprises.
...In case I remember this right too, that is.

I did some research and you are right.
I am still surprised, but yeah.. I should have checked before talking.
I owe you and OP apologies.

I will edit and cross out the incorrect info.

You can to copy wallet.dat from old mac and than paste it on new but sometimes it has problems as I saw in another threads so if you want to avoid problems, simply send bitcoins from old wallet to new wallet with fees and everything will be done without problems. If you don't want to send them, than follow the steps which was written by another forum users.

Thank you all for your help with this.  :)