Bit worried I've lost my 2BTC

[ohdear]

Hi there,

Complete bitcoin noob here.

I've got (had?) 6 BTC stored in my Bitcoin-QT wallet, received as 2 BTC to one address and 4 BTC to another. It's taking forever to sync (several days so far), so a few minutes ago I tried a test transaction, to see if I could send BTC before it's finished syncing.

I created an address for myself in the "Receive" section, and then tried sending 0.001 BTC to it through the "Send" section. My balance suddenly showed up as 4 (not 6) BTC, so I started freaking out a bit. I then checked the BlockChain.info record for the transaction, and it appears 0.001 BTC went to the test address I made, and 1.9989 BTC went to a totally different address! I tried importing my wallet into BlockChain and I'm now seeing:

Total Transactions   3   
Total Received   6.08744212 BTC   
Total Sent   2 BTC
Final Balance   4.08744212 BTC

I'm really worried that I've somehow lost my 2 BTC... can anyone help? Why would it send 0.001 to one address and the rest of my BTC to another? Have I messed this up?

Many thanks

Edit: in case it helps, here is an image of the transactions shown for the wallet on blockchain: http://clip2net.com/s/67Ka8x . How can -0.0001 BTC cause the balance to go from 6 to 4?!

[Birdy]

Bitcoin-qt uses change addresses, imagine the Bitcoin you receive like $20 bills. When you want to spend $4, you will actually use $20 and receive a change back. Bitcoin-qt does the same and the change is on a newly created address.

So nothing unusual so far.

The only part that makes me wonder is that this address didn't appear on blockchain.info.
You could try uploading a newer version of the wallet.dat or wait for it to end syncing.

[Gabi]

They went to the "change" address, you still have them. That is how bitcoin-qt works, the change is sent to a new, just created, address, for security and anonimity purposes.

[ohdear]

Ok, great to hear, thanks for the help . It's odd that if I export the wallet to BlockChain, the balance appears as 4.08744212 BTC though - is the change address somehow not being included in that?

edit: Just saw the rest of Birdy's post - I've tried re-uploading the wallet.dat, but no change so far. I'll wait for it to finish syncing

[Birdy]

Ok, great to hear, thanks for the help . It's odd that if I export the wallet to BlockChain, the balance appears as 4.08744212 BTC though - is the change address somehow not being included in that?

Usually the change address is taken from a pool of pregenerated addresses, probably those don't get imported into blockchain.info.
So my guess is: If you try uploading a newer version of the wallet.dat the address should be in there.