Questions about using wallets...(Electrum, paper wallets)

[lecomputer]

If anyone could answer these questions I would really appreciate it...


- I am using Electrum. It seems you can create as many wallets as you like, is it recommend to use multiple, why would you need to?

- If my hard drive dies and I lose everything, including Electrum, do I have to use the 'seed' to restore it? The wallets seem to be stored in some hidden folder on my mac, is it worth backing them up?

- can you use the desktop version and the app of Electrum to access the same wallets, or are wallets specific to the device?

- is saving your 'seed' digitally as an image such as a JPG safe? Especially if you were to hide it in something designed in photoshop to be more random?

Thanks, be great to know

[mk4]

- I am using Electrum. It seems you can create as many wallets as you like, is it recommend to use multiple, why would you need to?

It's up to you if you're going to use multiple wallets or not. I personally do use multiple wallets for better organization(one from campaigns, one from trading, one for my personal savings, etc etc)

- If my hard drive dies and I lose everything, including Electrum, do I have to use the 'seed' to restore it? The wallets seem to be stored in some hidden folder on my mac, is it worth backing them up?

Yes. The seed itself will be enough for you to access your funds.

- can you use the desktop version and the app of Electrum to access the same wallets, or are wallets specific to the device?

Yes. Everything is on the Blockchain, so you can use the same wallets for whatever device.

- is saving your 'seed' digitally as an image such as a JPG safe? Especially if you were to hide it in something designed in photoshop to be more random?

No. It really is not recommended to save your seed digitally. The safest way is still the pen and paper method, as hackers have pretty much no way of stealing your seed(besides physically stealing it).

[lecomputer]

Thanks MJ

I see that the seed will be enough to access funds, but is it worth backing up the wallets too, what advantage does that give?

Also if I use the Electrum app for instance, how do I open a wallet that is on  my computer?

I am interested in the idea of creating a very confusing digital image to hide my seed for instance, something that would surely be indecipherable by a computer or person. Just because having a backup stored digitally will be very foolproof on top of a paper backup. I might start a new thread as its a bigger question of its own

[odolvlobo]

- I am using Electrum. It seems you can create as many wallets as you like, is it recommend to use multiple, why would you need to?

You are probably confusing "address" with "wallet". Using one address per transaction improves privacy and costs nothing. There are not may reasons to reuse addresses.

- If my hard drive dies and I lose everything, including Electrum, do I have to use the 'seed' to restore it? The wallets seem to be stored in some hidden folder on my mac, is it worth backing them up?

You need the seed to restore the wallet. It may be stored in the wallet data, but you should store it separately in case the computer is lost or damaged. You can also use the seed to move your bitcoins to a different wallet.

- can you use the desktop version and the app of Electrum to access the same wallets, or are wallets specific to the device?

Yes by sharing the seed, but the information you enter about a transaction (such as what it is for or who it is from) is only stored on the computer that creates the transaction.

- is saving your 'seed' digitally as an image such as a JPG safe? Especially if you were to hide it in something designed in photoshop to be more random?

Storing it separately is safest. Storing a copy on the same computer is not helpful because if the computer is lost or damaged, you could lose both copies.

[lecomputer]

Thanks,

But in Electrum you can create multiple wallets, and then within those wallets you can use a different address for each transaction as you say. What is the use of using multiple wallets within Electrum?

Thanks for your help