electrum labeling

[kuk]

Hi Guys,

one question regarding the labeling in electrum

i send a coin to B. In the description field i put in B.

Now B is a label (description) in the history tab but the change address is not labeled with B. Is this right? Do i have to label my change manual?

[dkbit98]

Now B is a label (description) in the history tab but the change address is not labeled with B. Is this right? Do i have to label my change manual?

You don't have to label it, but you can do it if you want in Addresses tab even before you sent bitcoin, and labeling is for each individual addresses no matter if they are regular or change addresses.

[ranochigo]

i send a coin to B. In the description field i put in B.

Now B is a label (description) in the history tab but the change address is not labeled with B. Is this right? Do i have to label my change manual?

The description is used to indicate the purpose of the transaction to provide better clarity for the user. It is not associated with any addresses and thus does not affect the labeling of your own addresses.

If you want, you have to label your addresses manually. Note that the labels are only visible to you and local to your wallet file. Unless you have your wallet files, labels or description won't be covered by seed backups.

[dkbit98]

Note that the labels are only visible to you and local to your wallet file. Unless you have your wallet files, labels or description won't be covered by seed backups.

Is there any way to backup labels somehow?
One time I had to reinstall Electrum on my new computer and after importing my old seed phrase all labels disappeared, but I didn't click save backup from file menu before (not sure if that saves labels btw).
Maybe labels are also saved in some Electrum folder file.

[ranochigo]

Is there any way to backup labels somehow?
One time I had to reinstall Electrum on my new computer and after importing my old seed phrase all labels disappeared, but I didn't click save backup from file menu before (not sure if that saves labels btw).
Maybe labels are also saved in some Electrum folder file.

Yup, the labels are only in the wallet file though. The backup wallet functions backs up your wallet file and exports it in .backup extension.

Either using that or just directly copying your wallet file from Electrum's data directory is fine.

[Chikito]

Is there any way to backup labels somehow?

another way as a comment above, I never try it before, but electrum had also a plugin function for the synchronization label. So when restoring the wallet from seed, the label will show up without importing the wallet file.

[nc50lc]

Is there any way to backup labels somehow?

There's a label backup option under "Wallet->Labels->Export" menu.
That will produce a .json" file with default name of "electrum.labels.json" which you can rename.

Then you can import it to the other instances of that wallet using "Wallet->Labels->Import" menu.

[dkbit98]

another way as a comment above, I never try it before, but electrum had also a plugin function for the synchronization label. So when restoring the wallet from seed, the label will show up without importing the wallet file.

I don't think it's a good idea to keep labels, addresses and transaction on some remote server even if it's encrypted, but it may be better if you run your own server.

There's a label backup option under "Wallet->Labels->Export" menu.
That will produce a .json" file with default name of "electrum.labels.json" which you can rename.

Then you can import it to the other instances of that wallet using "Wallet->Labels->Import" menu.

I exported my labels with that option and I also made a regular backup before, but I wonder if there is any difference and what else is contained in regular backup file (except labels)?
Maybe it is transactions, saved contacts and something else, but I couldn't find any information on electrum website.

[nc50lc]

-snip-

I exported my labels with that option and I also made a regular backup before, but I wonder if there is any difference and what else is contained in regular backup file (except labels)?
Maybe it is transactions, saved contacts and something else, but I couldn't find any information on electrum website.

It's exclusively for labels in 'History' and 'Addresses' tab.
IMO, it's for uses who want to restore their labels to a watch-only copy or to another instance of their wallet.
Another use-case if for reference purposes, it's a ".json" file so it should be human-readable.

The "regular backup" (File->Save backup) is a complete copy of the wallet file, thus contains all wallet info including contacts.

[mocacinno]

--snip--
I don't think it's a good idea to keep labels, addresses and transaction on some remote server even if it's encrypted, but it may be better if you run your own server.
--snip--

That would be a fun project idear: a personal electrum label synchronisation server... Run a little deamon on your vps to synchronise your labels on all your machines... I mean, we already have projects that let you run your own electrum node, so running your own label synchronisation server seems like a reasonable next step privacy-wise.

I guess it wouldn't be to hard to do either (eventough i wouldn't call it a simple project): Pick trough electrum's sourcecode and see how the external synchronisation protocol works, then build a little daemon that does the same as the "real" synchronisation server.
The downside would be that the user would have to run a modified version of electrum, since his/her own synchronisation server would have to be hard-coded into electrum's binary instead of the current synchronisation server. Or maybe editing the hosts-file on the user's machine would be sufficient if we don't run into issues with invalid certificates (add a record that points the current synchronisation server to your vps's ip).

Something to try out on a rainy day

[kuk]

thx for all your answers. 

So Electrum does not automatically saves my "send" label to the change address. Why is that? Out of my sight every label "needs" to be named by the ones who knows of this address. So wouldnt it be better if electrum saves automatically the sending/transaction label to the change?

[mocacinno]

thx for all your answers.  

So Electrum does not automatically saves my "send" label to the change address. Why is that? Out of my sight every label "needs" to be named by the ones who knows of this address. So wouldnt it be better if electrum saves automatically the sending/transaction label to the change?

Well, on a technical level there is no "need". Labels are for your accounting purposes only, it's completely irrelevant (and unknown) for the rest of the network.

Personally, i'd rather not have my labels saved on any external server, eventough the encryption seems good (at first sight). It's nobody's business if i created an address to receive payments from Bob, or if i used transaction with txid "x" to pay Alice for a certain service. If those labels are important to me, it's up to me to backup them regularly.

[kuk]

Thanks 

[o_e_l_e_o]

So Electrum does not automatically saves my "send" label to the change address. Why is that? Out of my sight every label "needs" to be named by the ones who knows of this address. So wouldnt it be better if electrum saves automatically the sending/transaction label to the change?

Although you should only use addresses once each, many (perhaps even most) people don't. If you have an address which receives three transactions which you have labelled "Payment from Alice", "Refund from Bob", and "Wage from Charlie", then how can Electrum decide which label to apply to the address? Better to leave it blank and let the user decide.

I suppose you could make an argument for automatically applying a transaction label to a change address, since change addresses really shouldn't ever be reused unless the user is doing something really weird, but then again, change addresses should only be used for just that - change. Doesn't really make sense to me to label a change address "Payment from Alice" when it actually just contains funds you already owned which have moved around your wallet.