Noob question about Electrum wallet on a dying laptop

[JLizard]

I have a small fraction of Bitcoin I accepted in a trade back in 2020 as the buyer did not like paypal. He walked me through downloading Electrum and transfered the BTC fine. I printed out the Seed words, saved them as a txt file on a USB and emailed them to myself. I have no idea where any of those things are now.

I have not added any more and I don't trade or invest in any other crypto, but I like to look up the value on the internet every now and then.

The laptop the wallet is on is slowly dying, but it does power up and the wallet is accessable so I can get in to it. I can copy all sorts of things but I have no idea what any of them are. I am not sure which bits are important or whether the info I need to set up the same wallet on a new laptop is in plain sight.

I want to rescue my bitcoins and make sure this doesn't happen again. I am not actively trading so I just need somewhere to keep them safe.

Can I just start up an new electrum wallet on my next laptop and then transfer them across? If I take better care of the Seed phrase can I just keep installing Electrum on each new laptop forever?

What are my other options for longer term storage, hardware wallet, usb stick? I would probably lose those too.

Thanks

[NotATether]

The first thing you should do is save the seed phrase RIGHT NOW. Go to Wallet > Seed, type your password, and then write it down on paper. Do not save it to a file.

Now open Electrum on the new computer, click on File > New/Restore, "Standard Wallet", "I already have a seed", and then type your seed phrase. And then set a password for the wallet so it doesn't get hit by drainers.

That's all you need to copy your wallet.

[satscraper]

I have a small fraction of Bitcoin I accepted in a trade back in 2020 as the buyer did not like paypal. He walked me through downloading Electrum and transfered the BTC fine. I printed out the Seed words, saved them as a txt file on a USB and emailed them to myself. I have no idea where any of those things are now.

I have not added any more and I don't trade or invest in any other crypto, but I like to look up the value on the internet every now and then.

The laptop the wallet is on is slowly dying, but it does power up and the wallet is accessable so I can get in to it.

The most important stuff to be concerned about in your case is the SEED phrase for your Electrum wallet. As long as your SEED phrase is secure, you can always restore the access to your stash over any device that supports Electrum. However, I noticed that the method you're using to back up your SEED doesn't meet basic safety standards. I won’t go into detail about why because learning this through your own research will help the knowledge stick with you for life. That said, I’ll point you toward what I consider the most reliable way to store your SEED digitally which can be found on this forum.

[rdluffy]

If you've written down the seed you don't need to do anything else, with them you'll have access to your Bitcoin whenever you want
As you sent your seed by email, it's a bad security practice, the ideal is always to write it down completely offline, on a piece of paper for example or on an old pc offline
Never show your seed to anyone
In your case I would create a new wallet, write down the seed offline and send the balance there and leave it
Until you want to sell or exchange it.

[dkbit98]

What are my other options for longer term storage, hardware wallet, usb stick? I would probably lose those too.

I don't understand what is the point of telling you anything if you already know that you are going to lose that also 
Looking at value of coins that you don't control means nothing, but you can simply export private keys from your Electrum wallet or copy Electrum folder.
Hardware wallets are not that expensive these days, but you priority should be keeping keys in the safe place first and creating multiple backups. 

[Cricktor]

... and emailed them to myself. I have no idea where any of those things are now.

While this is also a bad idea because you likely sent your mnemonic recovery words unencrypted, you should know that a mailserver is simply someone else's computers. And when mail providers also jump on the AI shit train, who knows how your mail data is (ab)used to train some f****** AI.

How comes you don't have access to your email content? How comes you're so careless with such important recovery data?

Start learning about Bitcoin at https://learnmeabitcoin.com and also learn to be more responsible with valuable data like your wallet's recovery details.

If you can't do that, maybe better sell your coins and leave crypto coins space. That's my recommendation when you say, you may loose or forget everything. There's no point in loosing coins for nothing.

[khaled0111]

Can I just start up an new electrum wallet on my next laptop and then transfer them across? If I take better care of the Seed phrase can I just keep installing Electrum on each new laptop forever?

If you have your original wallet seed then you don’t need to transfer your coins to a new wallet every time you start using a new device. All you need to do is to recover your original wallet using its seed (NotATehther already explained how to do that above).

However, for security reasons, I suggest creating a new wallet and transferring your coins to it. Just make sure to properly back up your most recent wallet seed/file.
Email accounts are meant yo be used for exchanging messages and not for storing sensitive data. Better buy a hardware wallet.

[Lucius]

~snip~
What are my other options for longer term storage, hardware wallet, usb stick? I would probably lose those too.

If you admit that you are not a person who can successfully save a USB stick or a piece of paper with important information, then it would be best to sell what you have and not bother about such things. You're not the only person who has this problem, unfortunately I know a few people who lose something important every week, and when it comes to things like this, it's literally a no-go zone for them.

[mcdouglasx]

Can I just start up an new electrum wallet on my next laptop and then transfer them across? If I take better care of the Seed phrase can I just keep installing Electrum on each new laptop forever?

As long as you keep secure your seed, you'll be able to access your funds from anywhere. There's nothing physically tying you to your old computer. You just need to store the seed in a secure location, not on the internet, unless it's locked (encrypted).

I recommend that after opening your wallet on another PC, you format the old one for security reasons, but only do so when you're sure your funds will show up on the new computer.

Another suggestion is that if you don't use the funds constantly and only need to monitor the address, I suggest creating a watch-only wallet or saving your address in a text file and checking it whenever you want in any browser. This way, you won't need to use your seed unnecessarily, which could increase the risk of hacking.

[Findingnemo]

~snip~
What are my other options for longer term storage, hardware wallet, usb stick? I would probably lose those too.

If you admit that you are not a person who can successfully save a USB stick or a piece of paper with important information, then it would be best to sell what you have and not bother about such things. You're not the only person who has this problem, unfortunately I know a few people who lose something important every week, and when it comes to things like this, it's literally a no-go zone for them.

He is not out of options, though!

Now I understand why these custodial wallet providers exist. And that too comes with a subscription fee.

But it's no more his coins, the wallet provider will keep the keys and the user can access with a simple password or just biometrics and can access the funds as long as the device is not infected in any way.

[Obim34]

~snip~
What are my other options for longer term storage, hardware wallet, usb stick? I would probably lose those too.

If you admit that you are not a person who can successfully save a USB stick or a piece of paper with important information, then it would be best to sell what you have and not bother about such things. You're not the only person who has this problem, unfortunately I know a few people who lose something important every week, and when it comes to things like this, it's literally a no-go zone for them.

He is not out of options, though!

Now I understand why these custodial wallet providers exist. And that too comes with a subscription fee.

But it's no more his coins, the wallet provider will keep the keys and the user can access with a simple password or just biometrics and can access the funds as long as the device is not infected in any way.

Third party service are neither the best. According to OP he only holds small fraction of Bitcoin, we don't know how small he identifies the portion, not minding for the longevity he plans to hold that portion the price of Bitcoin must have upped very well.

Regardless, this third party providers are not doing it for free, they charge for securing you wallets, can OP keep up the fee which comes annually and still have what to profit. Question to keep in mind are they the safest possible option, if he can't trust himself then how bad will it be to trust another system to safeguard his portfolio -  safest would be sticking to Lucius opinion.

[PepeLapiu]

I'm late to post here, but here I am anyways.

It's important to understand your seed phrase (aka mnemonic phrase) is your bitcoin. If you have a zillion $ of bitcoin that piece of paper is worth a zillion $. Lose the piece of paper, lose a zillion $. I steal your piece of paper, I steal a zillion $.

I'm not sure in how bad a shape your old dying laptop is. Bit if it's not in too bad a shape, I would save the seed phrase somewhere safe and use the laptop as a hardware wallet. You just turn it off, and don't let it connect to anything. Done, your coin is almost 100% safe....unless I getbmy hands on your laptop or piece of paper.

Some purists here will interject and say that what I just told you is not safe. It is safe. Relative to what you were doing, it's a great deal safer if you do what I just advised.

If you really want to get very safe, write your words on steal instead of paper, and bury it somewhere in your backyard.

[nc50lc]

Some purists here will interject and say that what I just told you is not safe. It is safe. Relative to what you were doing, it's a great deal safer if you do what I just advised.

Okay, it's as safe as the safety precautions that he had done while the wallet is online and while the seed phrase was stored on plain text and online.
But it's not as safe as a Cold-Storage wallet which is created entirely offline.

Does that satisfy your definition of "almost 100% safe"?