How to import a private key into Electrum client?

[matt188]

I'm wanting to make a paper wallet so tried generating a wallet on bitaddress.org.  Here's the result (obviously I'm not going to use this address):

Bitcoin Address:
1GEkrLo9F1NGosabvE3SiiP3PjkNsUZmre

Private Key (Wallet Import Format):
5HpYGkJXKBRk9YgkZFSLgHR9uXsSJUZS4pZm9NHYXjXSE2opMnv

I wanted to test importing it so tried importing the private key with Electrum via the GUI and I always get the following error:

"The following inputs could not be imported:
5HpYGkJXKBRk9YgkZFSLgHR9uXsSJUZS4pZm9NHYXjXSE2opMnv"

Is there a specific format I should be using? Also how can I specify the address?

[scintill]

That just worked for me.  Are you sure you're not putting any extra characters or whitespace into the import box?

This looks like the right format.  You do not need to specify the address; it can be computed by Electrum from the private key.  You can verify it shows the same as your paper wallet and label it in Electrum if you like.

[matt188]

Hi scintill, thanks for your reply.

Pretty sure there is no bad whitespace added. See this album of screenshots showing what I'm doing: http://imgur.com/a/dqW9Q

Just selected the private key from my forum post again and pasted into the import window. 

Re: the wallet address, as this isn't a deterministic wallet my understanding is that I need to supply the wallet address also? Otherwise the wallet address could be anything?


Cheers,

Matt.

[Mitchell]

Hi scintill, thanks for your reply.

Pretty sure there is no bad whitespace added. See this album of screenshots showing what I'm doing: http://imgur.com/a/dqW9Q

Just selected the private key from my forum post again and pasted into the import window. 

Re: the wallet address, as this isn't a deterministic wallet my understanding is that I need to supply the wallet address also? Otherwise the wallet address could be anything?


Cheers,

Matt.

Looks correct to me. I don't know why it doesn't work, sorry.

[matt188]

Thanks, will take it to the Electrum forum. Just wanted to make sure I wasn't doing something too newbish 

[DannyHamilton]

What operating system are you using, I think I read somewhere that the behavior of importing private keys is different on different operating systems?

[scintill]

Looks like he got his answer on the Electrum subforum -- he was using a seedless (watch-only) wallet, and they don't support importing privkeys.

While trying to see if I could reproduce it on Mac OS, I have found that the binary package for download on electrum.org doesn't seem to support 32-bit systems like my 2007-era macbook, though.  Is this a known issue?

[heartuu2013]

Thanks, will take it to the Electrum forum. Just wanted to make sure I wasn't doing something too newbish   

[matt188]

What operating system are you using, I think I read somewhere that the behavior of importing private keys is different on different operating systems?

I tried on Windows 7 and Mac OS X 10.8.3 with seedless wallets.

Have just tried on my netbook with a seeded wallet and was able to successfully import the private key.

[matt188]

Looks like he got his answer on the Electrum subforum -- he was using a seedless (watch-only) wallet, and they don't support importing privkeys.

Yep, the seedless wallet was the problem.

While trying to see if I could reproduce it on Mac OS, I have found that the binary package for download on electrum.org doesn't seem to support 32-bit systems like my 2007-era macbook, though.  Is this a known issue?

I wasn't able to run the binary from electrum.org on my old Dell Mini 10v hackintosh which was stuck on OS X v10.6.8.

Wasn't sure if it was a 32-bit thing or just due to the old version of OS X, I ended up just putting Ubuntu on instead. Anyway sounds like the same problem you had.