-snip-
If I'm looking at the nice History tab with all transactions - to top line of the rightmost column, named "Balance", is how much BTC I have in my wallet. Also, down at the bottom in the "status bar" there's my BTC balance too (and conversion to fiat).
But it's misleading. Though called "Balance" it is not my balance at all as it is missing amounts in change addresses.
How do I get it to be the true actual balance of my wallet?
The balance in the
receiving and
change address is your asset, and the amount of balance information is shown at the bottom left of the wallet window.
You can use all the existing balances at the receiving or changed address.
Receiving addresses are the ones you hand out to people who want to send you money. It is best to get a receive address from the receive tab. You can also set a label there and save it so that when you receive money to that address the label shows up on the history tab.
Change addresses are used internally by electrum to send change back to your wallet. You could still give out a change address and receive bitcoin but it's better to just go with the flow and use receive addresses instead.
Meanwhile, if you are uncomfortable using the receiving address, you can disable it in the Preferences of Electrum; uncheck the
Use change addresses option on the Transactions tab.
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