Bitcoin Forum

I recently cleaned out my safety deposit box, and found an old thumbdrive inside it.  It was inside an envelope that was marked "bitcoin drive, cold storage" in my own handwriting.  The file descriptor says that the wallet.dat file was saved in October of 2011, so it predates the native wallet encryption.  I need to install it into a new client (I have an Imac) so that I can send whatever may be on it to my new addresses.  Does anyone have some recommendations?  Has anyone already done this, and have some warnings for me?  I'm afraid of downloading an old client version to install it into, because I know that it would be exposed during the bootstrapping process.

New client versions will accept old wallets. (I have a wallet from April 2011 which is working with 0.8.3)
If you are really concerned about the security though you should make the transaction on an offline computer.

just find a secure/trusted workstation, install bitcoin, and send the coins to the new address

alternately, tinfoil hat level security:

Okay, I've downloaded a new client to my iMac and it's presently catching up to the blockchain. But I see that the vanilla client still doesn't have a means of importing or merging an external wallet.dat file.  I see this as a kinda important feature.  It seems to have the ability to export addresses, but not the ability to import them; and even then I don't think that's quite the same as the ability to split or merge a wallet.  While I can take this new client's fresh wallet.dat and discard it, I have at least 4 old wallet.dat files that I really should merge together into a current wallet.  I have no idea how to do such a thing.

Also, what do I need to do next?  Do I just replace the fresh wallet.dat with the old one, and then restart?  Or do I need to do more to get it to rescan the blockchain?  Where is the data directory on an iMac, I'm an old GNU/Linux fan and even though the internal code are similar, nothing seems to end up in the right place.

You need a new address to transfer funds to. Load the client with one of the wallets, then transfer all the funds to this new address. Shut down bitcoin, replace the wallet with the next one and repeat. You may need to rescan the blockchain with each wallet change.

https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Data_directory

Also FWIW pywallet can merge wallets

But that's just a workaround, and a bit of a cludge as well.  Just because I choose to retire a set of addresses (or my client chooses for me) does not mean I wish to discard those private keys.  I still want those private keys, in the event that someone (accidentally or otherwise) were to send me bitcoins using an old address.  So I never discard the wallet.dat files associated with addresses that I've done business with in the past, even though I do empty their value before I change them.  The only reason that I change them is because I've switched machines, or I've had more than one machine with clients at a time.  When we found out about the wallet.dat stealing virus a couple of years back, I emptied my existing wallet.dat and created a new (encrypted) one simply because I didn't know if my prior one had been exposed or not.  But I still have that wallet.dat for the reasons mentioned.  I really do need a method of merging in old wallets to my current one, even if those addresses are all marked as tainted-do-not-use.

Excellent.  How do I do it?  Do I need to be a guru to safely do it?  Because if I do, I need a front end with the ability to keep me from making an irreversable error.

Do you have windows or Linux?
You'll have to install python in any case:
Can you wait 3days?
Are you OK to use the command line?

I'm okay using the CL in linux, but this is a mac.  I retired the linux boxen so that my homeschooled kids wouldn't have so much trouble adapting to the dominate computer windows model.  I was using BlackboxWM before. I honestly don't understand CL on a mac, and don't have either the time or motivation to learn anymore.  Such as it is, I already found the spot to swap out the wallet.dat files, and when I restarted the client it automaticly rescaned.  Turns out that it was a backup of an older wallet that I already emptied out, so there was nothing left on it.

I'm in the same boat as you. Being able to merge wallets would be great.

I think you could export all the private keys using PyWallet. Then you can import them all into one wallet. However you might as well merge them using the same tool.

Must be exciting. Do you remember how much you put in or will this be a total surprise?

It's just installing macports and four lines of code:
If you can't or don't want to, could you have access to a linux or a windows?

Look at the two links in my signature, they explain what to do. Post in the pywallet thread if you have problems.

Yes, both are possible

why not open a blockchain.info, swipe the keys, then send all the coins from there to your brand new wallet?

Armory will import a wallet as well as sweep or import individual keys.