Any way to reduce the size of the Bitcoin dir in windows?

[LobsterMan]

My C:\Users\[username]\AppData\Roaming\Bitcoin directory has ballooned up to approx. 17 GB and I feel like this is larger than it needs to be...

This is an old install that has been running since basically v0.3 and has never been modified or cleaned out.

Is there a way I can reduce this file size? and which files would be safe to delete to attempt this? I am ok having to redownload portions of the block chain but I don't want to lose my addresses...obviously (I assume wallet.dat is the only "really important" file I need to keep?)



EDIT: Sorry I realized this may actually be in the wrong forum section...please move this topic if it would be better suited somewhere else

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[w00dy]

simply delete everything except for the wallet.dat.

the satoshi client will download a new, fresh blockchain (around 10GB).

If you are on a SSD without a Sandisk Controller you can even save around 1 more GB by compressing the Blockchain with NTFS compression. 

[AliceWonder]

simply delete everything except for the wallet.dat.

the satoshi client will download a new, fresh blockchain (around 10GB).

If you are on a SSD without a Sandisk Controller you can even save around 1 more GB by compressing the Blockchain with NTFS compression.  

SSDs are good for small files, unless that's all the machine has, why would you want to waste SSD space for large bloated files?

[piotr_n]

My C:\Users\[username]\AppData\Roaming\Bitcoin directory has ballooned up to approx. 17 GB and I feel like this is larger than it needs to be...

You might have the old block database, which you won't need anymore.
I don't remember though which folder it was, but it should be a second that has a few gigs of files.

Also I believe if you have NTFS (and most windows users do), you can order your system to compress the folder - that would also save you some space.

[LobsterMan]

I have blk001.dat - 003 and index in my main Bitcoin dir, then there is another dir Blocks that seems to have similarly named files, these look like they have a more recent last modified date...so I guess these are the ones I want to keep?

EDIT: nuked everything except bitcoin.conf and wallet.dat and all seems well; had to redownload the blockchain again but that is no problem

[w00dy]

simply delete everything except for the wallet.dat.

the satoshi client will download a new, fresh blockchain (around 10GB).

If you are on a SSD without a Sandisk Controller you can even save around 1 more GB by compressing the Blockchain with NTFS compression.  

SSDs are good for small files, unless that's all the machine has, why would you want to waste SSD space for large bloated files?

- SSD's are good for big files
- SSD's are good for small files
- downloading/checking the blockchain cause a shitton of i/o. Thats something SSD's are very good at.

even with the size of the blockchain it simply does not matter anymore if you get 250GB for 160-170 USD.

IMO ofc..

[HeroC]

Re download Blockchain, then if you are on windows, right click the blocks folder, click advanced then check "Compress Content to save disk space".  It will bring it down a little.