Backing up wallet.dat

[just a man]

I assume you just copy wallet.dat and put it somewhere else, and then you can restore it when you want to spend the bitcoins in it by just copying the file back to the directory it normally resides in, but won't the client stop working if you take away the wallet.dat file? If it just creates a new one, what happens to transactions in the new wallet.dat when/if you over-write it with a backup? Please explain, I'd rather not plunge confidently ahead under the assumption that I know precisely how to back up because it's all self evident and obvious- as I was about to do, only to find I've buggered it all up.

[caveden]

If you just copy, without removing the original file from ~/.bitcoin, you won't have any of the issues you're talking about.

Don't delete the original file, just make an extra, encrypted copy.

[LZ]

Close Bitcoin before making copy.

[just a man]

Thanks guys.

And to restore it, I could send the balance somewhere else and then over-write with the backup?

[davout]

Yes.

But beware, if you backup at block 120,000 and you move the wallet to another client that has block 120,000 it won't pick up your balance right away.

You'll need to remove the block chain data in order to force a re-download of all blocks in order to force the client to scan them against the wallet that has just been put in place.

[LZ]

Just rename another wallet and move backup to that place.