how to recover my wallet from back up.

[kevinnem]

Hello, I had a wallet with I think what is called bitcoin -qt I think it is one of the original bit coin "clients" I know that it takes a long time to sync cause it downloads all teh data when you first install it. anyway, I had this account on it, and I backed it up with a file name based on teh date of the back up -- something like "feb 4th" or something. I have that backup file, but I don't understand how to get it "back into" the bitcoin program.

I think I have to move it to a specific folder, but I might also have to re-name it.

please advise.

[DannyHamilton]

Hello, I had a wallet with I think what is called bitcoin -qt I think it is one of the original bit coin "clients" I know that it takes a long time to sync cause it downloads all teh data when you first install it. anyway, I had this account on it, and I backed it up with a file name based on teh date of the back up -- something like "feb 4th" or something. I have that backup file, but I don't understand how to get it "back into" the bitcoin program.

I think I have to move it to a specific folder, but I might also have to re-name it.

please advise.

Assuming you backed up the "wallet.dat" file, you need to put it in the data directory and you have to name it "wallet.dat"

Do you have Bitcoin-Qt running right now with a new wallet?

[sylvester.steelstoned]

What operating system was it on?

Rename the backup to wallet.dat and place in the following folder depending on the OS you have....

For Mac go to folder ~/Library/Application Support/Bitcoin/wallet.dat
For Linux go to folder ~/.bitcoin/wallet.dat
For Windows run %APPDATA%\Bitcoin\wallet.dat

If you were transferring from another computer and still have access to all the bitcoin folders then copy them all over to the new computer to save you a ton of time verifying all the blocks again.