Do I still have to download the whole blockchain?

[timk225]

I was updating my laptop and its bitcoin wallet, and noticed that the blockchain file is now taking up 53 GB of my SSD's space!

Isn't there a shorter version of the blockchain, maybe one that starts at block 380,000 or so?  I don't need the whole damn chain, it is just wasted disk space.

[txbtc]

you can try other light version of bitcoin wallets like electrum,multibit etc
no need to download big blockchain

[timk225]

Damn. I am using bitcoin core version 0.10.2 .

[KeyserSozeMC]

Just use electrum. The best lite wallet out there imo.
No need to dl any crap.

[SquallLeonhart]

Damn. I am using bitcoin core version 0.10.2 .

you can switch to other wallet version like electrum, just export your private keys from bitcoin core and import into electrum wallet

[Small]

I was updating my laptop and its bitcoin wallet, and noticed that the blockchain file is now taking up 53 GB of my SSD's space!

Isn't there a shorter version of the blockchain, maybe one that starts at block 380,000 or so?  I don't need the whole damn chain, it is just wasted disk space.

Unfortunately block pruning has not been completed yet so you can't spend coins when you enable pruning as of now. If you have enough space, synchronize it and send it to another HD wallet like Electrum after you backup the seed. Then keep a backup of wallet.dat and delete the %appdata%/Bitcoin files.

It isn't recommended to extract your private key but if you absolutely need to, you can. Go to console, type in this to unlock wallet:

Code:

walletpassphrase [walletpasscodehere] 600

if you have a password and use this

Code:

dumpprivkey [Address here]

. You should get your private key of the address and you can proceed to import into another client.

[achow101]

The latest version of Bitcoin core, 0.11.2 has block pruning enabled, so you the blockchain will be pruned and it will take up less space. Unfortunately, it does not have the wallet enabled so you won't be able to use your wallet with that.

The next version of Bitcoin Core, 0.12, will have block pruning and the wallet will work when that is enabled. It is supposed to come out sometime in December.

If you are feeling up to it, you can compile and run the version in the master branch of the Github repository. It should already have the wallet function in pruned mode enabled.

Or you can do as others suggested and switch to a SPV wallet.