Android wallet balance viewer

[willphase]

Hi,

I've written an android application that allows you to view your wallet balance on your android phone, without having to have a complete wallet stored on it.

It works by exporting your public keys from your bitcoin wallet using a command line tool.  You then place your public addresses in a repository, or on the SD card, then run the application on your android phone - import your public keys, and then goes to blockexplorer and adds up all the transactions to/from those addresses and presents you the result.  No need to wait ages to download blocks, get your wallet balance on any Android phone in seconds!



All the source is provided so you can check I'm not doing anything bad.  I also provide Windows/Linux binaries of the decoder tool.

The source and binaries are:

http://code.google.com/p/bitcoinwallet/

Let me know if you find it useful, or any issues you have - I haven't tested it with large wallets so I'd be interested to hear if people have issues with that.  Please read the FAQ for answers to most questions.

Backup your wallet before using this tool.  I do not accept any liability for wallet corruption caused by this app!!!

Cheers,

Will

[1715631594]

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[1715631594]

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[1715631594]

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[giszmo]

I don't see your app particularly useful but I'm interested in the reactions of others as I also thought about doing an app that would require the keys. Actually mine would need some private keys but not necessarily with a balance on them. Guess the crucial part is that the key extraction is open source.

In your case if the extraction is open source and if users compile it from that source, things can be pretty save but expecting many will take the hassle to compile for them self is illusionary.

anyway, i'll stay tuned

[willphase]

I don't see your app particularly useful but I'm interested in the reactions of others as I also thought about doing an app that would require the keys. Actually mine would need some private keys but not necessarily with a balance on them. Guess the crucial part is that the key extraction is open source.

In your case if the extraction is open source and if users compile it from that source, things can be pretty save but expecting many will take the hassle to compile for them self is illusionary.

anyway, i'll stay tuned

Well I personally have found it pretty useful - I can login from my pool/exchange on my phone and withdraw bitcoins, then wait a few minutes and check my wallet balance, all from my android phone...

yes the key extraction was a pain, once the official bitcoin client support key export then it'll all become a lot easier.  I debated which language to write the extraction utility in, and whether to have lots of dependencies on other libraries (e.g. berkeley database)- but in the end made the decision to make the decoder pretty much standalone so it could compile on as many systems as possible without needing to download tons of libraries and get them installed.

I have code to extract private keys too, and I've imported them into a fully blown bitcoin wallet (like bitcoinj) pretty easily, but until the reference bitcoin implementation supports this as standard, anything like this will remain a pain.  I also didn't want to put bitcoinj in an android app since it's still quite heavyweight at the moment.

Thanks for the interest.

Will

[willphase]

released v1.0.4 - this fixes some null pointer issues and also makes the progress bar more reliable in low bandwidth scenarios (e.g. when on GPRS)

Let me know if you have any issues e.g. giving wrong balance.  The problem is likely with the way the addresses are exported from the wallet.dat - really need the key export feature to be added to bitcoin!

Also added a FAQ page to answer any questions.

Will

[willphase]

UPDATES

v1.0.5 of wallet

 * Change default so it loads transactions of 50 keys at a time from blockexplorer (rather than 10).  This should speed up the balance checking.
 * Fix some issues of loading corrupt history

v1.0.1 of decoder

 * Now extracts ALL public keys and not just some of them.  I was trying to be too smart before and only picking some to export (to make the downloads for the wallet smaller) but you do need to export them all since you don't know which ones have been used for change transactions.

Let me know if you find the tool useful.  I'm using it as my main wallet now and store my wallet.dat on encrypted media unless I need to make a payment  - it functions pretty well as a simple read-only balance checker to make sure my pool is paying me reliably.

Will

[SgtSpike]

I suppose I would be nervous giving an application access to my wallet file...

I'd also need an android-based phone to use this. 

[willphase]

I suppose I would be nervous giving an application access to my wallet file...

this is why it only exports the public keys - and the tool to export the keys is separate from the android application.  You can run the export tool on a machine with no internet if you worry about it sending keys or data anywhere - or just view the source here or compile it yourself.  Once you have the addresses then you can view your balance (and it will update automatically) from your android phone, with no risk of anyone stealing them and making payments (because you need the private keys, which you can leave secure in your wallet.dat on a usb stick).  I could even argue it's actually more secure using this tool to view your balance, because there's no way anyone could steal your bitcoins from just your public addresses...

I'd also need an android-based phone to use this.  

Yes, although I'm hoping to get my hands on an iPhone soon then I'll port it to that - the code to actually parse the transactions from blockexplorer should port pretty easily to Objective C.

Will

[willphase]

Major update to the App!

New features include:

 - Multiple wallet support!
 - Ability to import from the SD card, as well as from a URL
 - Better handling of large address lists, the app now only has to check blockexplorer for transactions that contain your addresses (you can manually override this behavior).
 
I also compiled the decoder for linux x86, you can find it on the downloads page, along with the existing win32 binary.  Unfortunately, until the ability to export addresses is added to the main bitcoin client, you still have to extract the keys using the decoder.

Since this is a major new release, I've placed the app on the Android Market - you can find it here.

Let me know what you think!

Will

[luv2drnkbr]

I know it's dumb, but I made my wallet keep 1000 addresses in stead of the normal 100, and your decode tool only displays the first 300 or so.  Any way you could make it show up to 1100..

[tymothy]

Any chance you could pull Mt Gox data and display bitcoin net worth in bitcoins and USD as a widget?

[cloon]

Great Idea!  We need more people like you!

[willphase]

I know it's dumb, but I made my wallet keep 1000 addresses in stead of the normal 100, and your decode tool only displays the first 300 or so.  Any way you could make it show up to 1100..

this is strange, it should be exporting them all.  When you import the 300 keys into the android wallet, does it display your balance correctly?

Will

[luv2drnkbr]

I know it's dumb, but I made my wallet keep 1000 addresses in stead of the normal 100, and your decode tool only displays the first 300 or so.  Any way you could make it show up to 1100..

this is strange, it should be exporting them all.  When you import the 300 keys into the android wallet, does it display your balance correctly?

Will

It might just be that I suck with the command prompt and know jack shit about using it.  When I ran the program from cmd.exe and right clicked to "select all" and copy, it only gave me 298, and it also only let me scroll up 298.  But if your program truly does catch all of them, then I just need to know how to tell it to print it's output into a text file.  Is there a way to do that?  I tried the >> /s [file] following it and that didn't work, and that's about the extent of my knowledge of command prompt.

[willphase]

It might just be that I suck with the command prompt and know jack shit about using it.  When I ran the program from cmd.exe and right clicked to "select all" and copy, it only gave me 298, and it also only let me scroll up 298.  But if your program truly does catch all of them, then I just need to know how to tell it to print it's output into a text file.  Is there a way to do that?  I tried the >> /s [file] following it and that didn't work, and that's about the extent of my knowledge of command prompt.

run:

./decode > keys.txt

then copy the keys.txt file to your sdcard on your phone, and you should be able to import them.

Will

[luv2drnkbr]

It might just be that I suck with the command prompt and know jack shit about using it.  When I ran the program from cmd.exe and right clicked to "select all" and copy, it only gave me 298, and it also only let me scroll up 298.  But if your program truly does catch all of them, then I just need to know how to tell it to print it's output into a text file.  Is there a way to do that?  I tried the >> /s [file] following it and that didn't work, and that's about the extent of my knowledge of command prompt.

run:

./decode > keys.txt

then copy the keys.txt file to your sdcard on your phone, and you should be able to import them.

Will

That worked brilliantly!  Thank you so very much!!!  (And sorry for bothering you with such a stupid problem!)

[willphase]

That worked brilliantly!  Thank you so very much!!!  (And sorry for bothering you with such a stupid problem!)

No problem!  I've updated the FAQ to reflect this issue.

I'm hoping to have some time to work on the app today, I'll try and add some features people have been requesting.  Now that there are two separate android bitcoin clients that are able to create and manage their own wallets, I'm going to concentrate on adding value to being able to monitor the transactions/status of you main wallet so you keep it offline unless you absolutely need to send bitcoins using your private keys - e.g. for managing a savings account where you don't want to expose your private keys.

Will

[willphase]

I've just pushed version 1.2.0 to the Android Market.  It now allows you to view transaction history for each of your wallets.  Let me know if you have any feedback!

Will

[luv2drnkbr]

This has nothing to do with your program, but I was having trouble importing my keys, and it turned out, out of the 1100 addresses, 6 or 7 were not actually valid addresses.  I'm slightly worried they will be used by my client in the future!  Anyway, thanks for the help and the awesome program!

[willphase]

Thanks to whomever sent (the one and only!) crash report I've seen so far for the app... If you could PM me that would be cool because I'd like to try and work out why the transactions it's looking for don't exist - do you have generation transactions in your wallet?

Will

[willphase]

Just a brief update - I'm hoping to have some time soon (probably next weekend) to add some enhancements to the app- in the meantime please add any suggestions to the issues list here and I'll try and implement as many of them as I can.  The next things I'll probably be adding are live exchange data (display your balance in e.g. USD or EUR), finishing off the widget for your homescreen, and a graph of your wallet balance over time, unless people want other features.

Will

[willphase]

Just pushed 1.3.0 to the Android Market!

New Features:
 * Now displays your balance in a fiat currency of your choice (data feed courtesy of the fine folks at bitcoincharts.com)
 * Widget on homescreen now displays total balance of your linked wallets
 * Can now import from the output of many other tools such as pywallet.py - making it even easier to load your public address keys into your phone!

Remember, Bitcoin Wallet Balance does not need your private keys, but links a live feed of your wallet to your phone - no need to download the block chain either!

Please read the FAQ or the Quick Start Guide.

Let me know if you have any suggestions for improvements, or if you encounter any issues.

Will

[InstaGx]

I've got a problem with the app. In detail:
I exported the public keys and imported them via sdcard into the app. Next I pressed update. I think I saw the correct balance for a second. After that - force close.
Now it's instantly force closing every time I try to open the app.

I'm using Android 2.1. Also I changed the currency to EUR after the first start (and before loading the keys).
You can PM me if you need any additional details.

[willphase]

I've got a problem with the app. In detail:
I exported the public keys and imported them via sdcard into the app. Next I pressed update. I think I saw the correct balance for a second. After that - force close.
Now it's instantly force closing every time I try to open the app.

I'm using Android 2.1. Also I changed the currency to EUR after the first start (and before loading the keys).
You can PM me if you need any additional details.

Thanks for your post!  Can you send the bug report to Google if it gives you the option? - then I get the stack trace then and it should tell me exactly what the problem is.  I'm going to be relasing a new version on Sunday so I'll try and get the fix in before then.  I know of some issues related to invalid Date Formats - so you could try deleting the app configuration (settings->applications->manage applications->wallet balance->Clear Data) and see if that makes a difference?

Will

[InstaGx]

I've got a problem with the app. In detail:
I exported the public keys and imported them via sdcard into the app. Next I pressed update. I think I saw the correct balance for a second. After that - force close.
Now it's instantly force closing every time I try to open the app.

I'm using Android 2.1. Also I changed the currency to EUR after the first start (and before loading the keys).
You can PM me if you need any additional details.

Thanks for your post!  Can you send the bug report to Google if it gives you the option? - then I get the stack trace then and it should tell me exactly what the problem is.  I'm going to be relasing a new version on Sunday so I'll try and get the fix in before then.  I know of some issues related to invalid Date Formats - so you could try deleting the app configuration (settings->applications->manage applications->wallet balance->Clear Data) and see if that makes a difference?

Will

After clearing the data the app can be started again. But the wallet is gone and the key file has to be imported again. After the update the app fcs again.
I've send the bug report.

[willphase]

I've got a problem with the app. In detail:
I exported the public keys and imported them via sdcard into the app. Next I pressed update. I think I saw the correct balance for a second. After that - force close.
Now it's instantly force closing every time I try to open the app.

I'm using Android 2.1. Also I changed the currency to EUR after the first start (and before loading the keys).
You can PM me if you need any additional details.

Thanks for your post!  Can you send the bug report to Google if it gives you the option? - then I get the stack trace then and it should tell me exactly what the problem is.  I'm going to be relasing a new version on Sunday so I'll try and get the fix in before then.  I know of some issues related to invalid Date Formats - so you could try deleting the app configuration (settings->applications->manage applications->wallet balance->Clear Data) and see if that makes a difference?

Will

After clearing the data the app can be started again. But the wallet is gone and the key file has to be imported again. After the update the app fcs again.
I've send the bug report.

Thanks - I got the bug report - it seems to be the same issue I saw on the morning of 3 Aug (was that you?) which is related to something to do with date parsing... I think the issue might be the date format you are using - might I ask which language your phone is set to...?  I'll make some fixes to the app this weekend and it should solve the issue anyway.  Until then please accept my apologies for the problems and thanks for submitting the bug report.

Will

[InstaGx]

I've got a problem with the app. In detail:
I exported the public keys and imported them via sdcard into the app. Next I pressed update. I think I saw the correct balance for a second. After that - force close.
Now it's instantly force closing every time I try to open the app.

I'm using Android 2.1. Also I changed the currency to EUR after the first start (and before loading the keys).
You can PM me if you need any additional details.

Thanks for your post!  Can you send the bug report to Google if it gives you the option? - then I get the stack trace then and it should tell me exactly what the problem is.  I'm going to be relasing a new version on Sunday so I'll try and get the fix in before then.  I know of some issues related to invalid Date Formats - so you could try deleting the app configuration (settings->applications->manage applications->wallet balance->Clear Data) and see if that makes a difference?

Will

After clearing the data the app can be started again. But the wallet is gone and the key file has to be imported again. After the update the app fcs again.
I've send the bug report.

Thanks - I got the bug report - it seems to be the same issue I saw on the morning of 3 Aug (was that you?) which is related to something to do with date parsing... I think the issue might be the date format you are using - might I ask which language your phone is set to...?  I'll make some fixes to the app this weekend and it should solve the issue anyway.  Until then please accept my apologies for the problems and thanks for submitting the bug report.

Will

I tried the app for the first time today. My phone language is German and my timezone MESZ (which is UTC+2). I looked into the wallet data file in the app directory with Root explorer and found the date format that is saved. Sat Aug 06 13:22:09 MESZ 2011 is an example.

Also it seems that the force close might be triggered every time the app tries to load this file. I noticed that an initial update isn't necessary to get a fc. Restarting the app after importing the addresses has the same effect.

[willphase]

I tried the app for the first time today. My phone language is German and my timezone MESZ (which is UTC+2). I looked into the wallet data file in the app directory with Root explorer and found the date format that is saved. Sat Aug 06 13:22:09 MESZ 2011 is an example.

Also it seems that the force close might be triggered every time the app tries to load this file. I noticed that an initial update isn't necessary to get a fc. Restarting the app after importing the addresses has the same effect.

Yes it's definitely related to the way I store the date in the file, I was already planning on changing it to a unix datetime this weekend based on the a few bug reports from 3 Aug (identical to yours) so it should solve the issue.  When I set my timezone/language to German/+2 GMT I could replicate the FC as well.  Thanks again for the detailed report.

Edit: in my defence, arguably this is a bug in Java Date... I was assuming that date.equals(new Date( date.toString() ) ); but obviously not...

Will

[willphase]

I've pushed version 1.3.1 to fix this date parsing issue - it's already on the Android market.  This is just a bugfix release, I'll push 1.4 once I have some new features.  If you currently have a unreadable wallet because of the parsing bug then you will need to update the balance once to fix the dates.

Will

[simonk83]

No joy here.  Installed it this morning but I just get an error message about the JSON.  No details are downloaded.

[willphase]

No joy here.  Installed it this morning but I just get an error message about the JSON.  No details are downloaded.

when do you get this error?  When updating your balance?

JSON error at that point probably means the response from blockexplorer has been mangled in some way.  Possibly a proxy cutting the request?  I'm going to release a new version soon where you get to specify the length of the GET request to avoid this issue with some transparent proxies.

Thanks for letting me know the issue.

Will

[simonk83]

No joy here.  Installed it this morning but I just get an error message about the JSON.  No details are downloaded.

when do you get this error?  When updating your balance?

JSON error at that point probably means the response from blockexplorer has been mangled in some way.  Possibly a proxy cutting the request?  I'm going to release a new version soon where you get to specify the length of the GET request to avoid this issue with some transparent proxies.

Thanks for letting me know the issue.

Will

Yep, when updating balance.  "JSON Parse Error".

Hopefully the new version fixes it, this is a good idea

[willphase]

Just pushed 1.4.0 to the Android Market.

This fixes the issue that simonk83's (and others, I suspect) was having where the application was not correctly handling coinbase transactions (e.g. those from Eligius).  It also adds some options for setting the maximum number of addresses to request at a time (for those people who have reported being behind proxies that are truncating the GET request) and also allows you to pick the number of decimal places to show when displaying balances.

Thanks for all those giving feedback - I do try to listen to my users so if you have any suggestions please post here or raise an issue on the Google code page.

Cheers,

Will

[simonk83]

Works fine, thanks

Quick question, and I'm not sure if this is possible at all.  Are you able to show the "simple" names we've assigned to addresses in our client?  For example, I've assigned "Slush" to an address so I can easily see which particular payments are from them.

Is that possible to pass over at all?

[simonk83]

Ok, bit of feedback

It (the individual transaction view) appears to be combining payments.  This is a little annoying.

For example, yesterday I got three payments from three different pools, all to three different addresses.   At first, only the last payment appeared in the app.  I left it for a while, and eventually found that I had to do a Force Update before the rest appeared, but now it grouped the second two txns into one amount.    It's done the same this morning with two other payments.

Right now it's very handy for seeing at a glance how much total you have, but it's not great for seeing individual payments that come in.

Not sure if that can be fixed up?  (and my suggestion in the post above would be awesome)

[willphase]

It'll group transactions that occur in the same block.  This was done to avoid seeing both the out and the change transaction in different columns in the transactions list.  I'll see if I can work out a better way to do this based on the txhash rather than just on block timestamps.

Your other suggestion is a good one, but I can't easily get the friendly names from the bitcoin client - even pywallet (whose great JSON wallet export my app now happily accepts) doesn't seem to export the friendly names.  I think what I'll probably do is allow you to just label the names again in the client and it'll persist those names.  I'll try and get that in the next release.

Will

[DannyM]

This would make a nice PC app for use without a phone.

[Dabs]

Hi,

Can you make a decode tool that also exports the private keys? Something much simpler than currently available, and works just like your existing decode tool for public keys.

Thank you.

[willphase]

Hi,

Can you make a decode tool that also exports the private keys? Something much simpler than currently available, and works just like your existing decode tool for public keys.

Thank you.

Hi - pywallet is pretty simple to use, and what I recommend for everyone, since it has all the crypt to decode the encrypted private keys.

Will

[aneutronic]

Great app Will!   Thanks for your efforts.

[JakeGold]

Is anyone else getting the "Warning: unable to obtain currency information" error when trying to update the currency equivalent?

[Paladin69]

I am not getting warnings, but yeah, the total currecncy value in the bottom right corner has been blank for quite a while now.  It's taking the fun out of watching your USD grow during these crazy times.

API needs updating or something?  I'm not sure which exchange the price is pointing to?

[(A)social]

Didn't know there was a thread for this app until now. I'm using it, but it is still missing a QRcode reader

[willphase]

I am not getting warnings, but yeah, the total currecncy value in the bottom right corner has been blank for quite a while now.  It's taking the fun out of watching your USD grow during these crazy times.

API needs updating or something?  I'm not sure which exchange the price is pointing to?

I'm travelling at the moment (in Singapore for the Bitcoin Conference) but I can certainly take a look at fixing the exchange API when I get back.  It's using bitcoincharts.com at the moment, so something must have changed on their system.

Cheers,

Will

[JakeGold]

I am not getting warnings, but yeah, the total currecncy value in the bottom right corner has been blank for quite a while now.  It's taking the fun out of watching your USD grow during these crazy times.

API needs updating or something?  I'm not sure which exchange the price is pointing to?

I'm travelling at the moment (in Singapore for the Bitcoin Conference) but I can certainly take a look at fixing the exchange API when I get back.  It's using bitcoincharts.com at the moment, so something must have changed on their system.

Cheers,

Will

Great, I've been using this app for ages, probably one of the most most exhilarating bitcoin apps.

Seeing BTC climb from $120 to $360 is great, but seeing your balance represented in fiat triple is just AWESOME. Only wish it had a widget (and a way to add an arbitrary amount of coins to your balance if you're holding them at an exchange or something).

[willphase]

I am not getting warnings, but yeah, the total currecncy value in the bottom right corner has been blank for quite a while now.  It's taking the fun out of watching your USD grow during these crazy times.

API needs updating or something?  I'm not sure which exchange the price is pointing to?

I'm travelling at the moment (in Singapore for the Bitcoin Conference) but I can certainly take a look at fixing the exchange API when I get back.  It's using bitcoincharts.com at the moment, so something must have changed on their system.

Cheers,

Will

Great, I've been using this app for ages, probably one of the most most exhilarating bitcoin apps.

Seeing BTC climb from $120 to $360 is great, but seeing your balance represented in fiat triple is just AWESOME. Only wish it had a widget (and a way to add an arbitrary amount of coins to your balance if you're holding them at an exchange or something).

There is a homescreen widget, but it only displays in BTC, not in fiat.

You could add arbitrary coins by just finding some coins on blockchain that haven't moved in a while that match the value you want (they can be multiple addresses...) then adding them... but of course if they ever move then your balance would change which might freak you out.

Will

[JakeGold]

Great, I've been using this app for ages, probably one of the most most exhilarating bitcoin apps.

Seeing BTC climb from $120 to $360 is great, but seeing your balance represented in fiat triple is just AWESOME. Only wish it had a widget (and a way to add an arbitrary amount of coins to your balance if you're holding them at an exchange or something).

[...]
You could add arbitrary coins by just finding some coins on blockchain that haven't moved in a while that match the value you want [...]

This is much harder and more time consuming than it sounds 

Unless there's a quicker and easier way to look though addresses than watching blockchain.info

[willphase]

Great, I've been using this app for ages, probably one of the most most exhilarating bitcoin apps.

Seeing BTC climb from $120 to $360 is great, but seeing your balance represented in fiat triple is just AWESOME. Only wish it had a widget (and a way to add an arbitrary amount of coins to your balance if you're holding them at an exchange or something).

[...]
You could add arbitrary coins by just finding some coins on blockchain that haven't moved in a while that match the value you want [...]

This is much harder and more time consuming than it sounds 

Unless there's a quicker and easier way to look though addresses than watching blockchain.info

yes I agree - to be honest, blockchain.info does an excellent android app, and you can import all the public keys you want into their service (without trusting them with your funds) and then view your balance on their android app... I think you get everything that my app gives you and as well as push android notifications.  Yes I know I'm sort of selling another app here, but the blockchain.info app is pretty good - the only thing it doens't have is multiple wallet support.

Will