Does Electrum have Coin Control similar to Bitcoin Core?

[takuma sato]

I like to use Electrum for small amounts when im on the move. It's great because it comes pre-installed within Tails so it's pre-verified, you save time plus you leave no logs anywhere if you know what you are doing. For small amounts where you are supposed to threat them like cash is good enough.

However, from what im seeing, im not sure it has Coin Control.

How do I select from what address im sending funds from? I have heard some people say, "you can't, so you have to create one wallet per address" which is annoying. But im not sure if this is true. I asked GPT an came up with a reply saying it's possible:

Electrum has built-in coin control for this.

    Open your wallet and go to View → Show Coins. This adds a Coins tab.
    Open Coins to see each individual UTXO—each separate “coin” in your wallet.
    Select the UTXO(s) you want to spend:
        Hold Ctrl on Windows/Linux or Command on macOS to select multiple coins.
    Right-click the selection and choose Add to coin control.
    Go to the Send tab and create your transaction. Electrum will use only the selected coins.
    Before signing, open Preview and verify the transaction’s inputs, outputs, change address, and fee.

To prevent a coin from being selected automatically, right-click it and choose Freeze coin. Frozen coins remain in your wallet but are excluded from normal spending until you unfreeze them.

When finished, clear the selection with the Reset option in the Coins tab; otherwise coin control may remain active for a later transaction. Also be careful about combining coins from unrelated sources, since spending them together permanently links them on the public blockchain.

As im busy right now I had no time to read the manual and just lazily asked GPT, but AI sucks and most of the time comes up with random things that need to be verified. If anyone is an expert on Electrum here please let me know as if I could select what funds I send coins from it would save a lot of time because having to manage one wallet per address would make this quite annoying to work with.

[DireWolfM14]

Yes, Electrum's mobile app has coin control.  Once you open the app, log in, and load the wallet you want, tap the wallet name in the upper left and from the menu select "Addresses/Coins."  Your used addresses will be displayed and from there you can select the address from which you want to send.  In the upper right there's a drop down menu where you can select coins instead, if you would rather spend a specific UTXO.

[Mia Chloe]

Yes, Electrum's mobile app has coin control.  Once you open the app, log in, and load the wallet you want, tap the wallet name in the upper left and from the menu select "Addresses/Coins."  Your used addresses will be displayed and from there you can select the address from which you want to send.  In the upper right there's a drop down menu where you can select coins instead, if you would rather spend a specific UTXO.

Yes this works perfectly on the mobile another alternative you can also use is try to freeze the addresses you do not wish to spend from and the wallet will automatically work around consolidating with the rest you have. You can also use it to isolate a particular UTXO you don't want to spend.

~snip

It depends on you that can work too. You can decide to import the child keys to a single address and spend only its UTXO.

[Cricktor]

I didn't read the OP asked for Electrum mobile version where coin control is a bit more complicated (I rarely use the mobile app for real "money") and maybe missed most recent changes. What I remember for the mobile version of Electrum is, that you have to freeze all coins or addresses you don't want to spend from, instead of selecting stuff for coin control, but this maybe changed in most recent versions of the mobile app. Don't nail me for it.

As im busy right now I had no time to read the manual and just lazily asked GPT, but AI sucks ...

LOL, that's a neat excuse for not having to research yourself. I've seen you ask a lot of questions here and there over the past that could be answered with some (little search) effort of your own, but that's another story, maybe old gossip...

In desktop's Electrum in the Addresses tab you can select single or multiple addresses with funds, right click and select "Add to coin control" from context menu. You don't have the context option of "Add to coin control" when addresses don't have any funds, i.e. doesn't show up with "empty" addresses.

If you want coin control on the UTXO level, you do the same on the Coins tab. Quite well described by the AI output you cited. I don't know that you didn't understand there, frankly.

If you don't see those tabs by default, open "View" menu and enable those.

[BitMaxz]

Actually the AI gives you the right guide on how to use coin control; there's no problem verifying if the AI is correct.

Look at the image below and follow what the AI guided you above.



You can only see the coins tab if you enable the coins under view. Then sellect what coins you want to spend then click tools and then coin control.
The selected ones are the only coins that will be spent once you create a transaction on the send tab.

[Cricktor]

...

Btw, BitMaxz, if you paint over an address to hide it, but you leave the Output point visible in the "Coins" tab as can be seen in your screenshot above, it's fairly easy to look up your address. Either blur or hide both or none.

Output point 941724x917x3 decodes to block 941724, sequential transaction no. 917 in that block, fourth transaction output.

[hosemary]

What I remember for the mobile version of Electrum is, that you have to freeze all coins or addresses you don't want to spend from, instead of selecting stuff for coin control, but this maybe changed in most recent versions of the mobile app. Don't nail me for it.

You are right, and it's still the same even in the latest version.
The mobile version of Electrum only allows you to freeze addresses/coins.

If you want coin control on the UTXO level, you do the same on the Coins tab. Quite well described by the AI output you cited. I don't know that you didn't understand there, frankly.

You can also select the coins you want to spend, and simply select "Fully spend" from the right-click menu.

[Zaguru12]

Yes this works perfectly on the mobile another alternative you can also use is try to freeze the addresses you do not wish to spend from and the wallet will automatically work around consolidating with the rest you have. You can also use it to isolate a particular UTXO you don't want to spend.

For standard coin control that’s actually Available on the desktop version the android version doesn’t actually have, only what you can do is simply freeze the UTXO which you don’t wish to use and then spend the rest but this is different from the standard coin control even though freezing of coin can still fall under the coin control category.


Off topic BlueWallet has both features on mobile version that’s why I prefer it to other bitcoin only mobile wallets.

[LoyceV]

As im busy right now I had no time to read the manual

Just starting up Electrum and checking for yourself would have been a whole lot faster than creating this topic.
Either way, I've been using coin control in Electrum for years. This works with or without hardware wallet.

[BitMaxz]

Btw, BitMaxz, if you paint over an address to hide it, but you leave the Output point visible in the "Coins" tab as can be seen in your screenshot above, it's fairly easy to look up your address. Either blur or hide both or none.

Output point 941724x917x3 decodes to block 941724, sequential transaction no. 917 in that block, fourth transaction output.

Thanks for letting me know this is new to me.
I just want to hide it since I don't own that address; there's no problem if anyone wants to find the exact address it isn't mine. At least I just pointed out how the coins tab works to confirm the guide provided from ChatGPT above.

[NotATether]

You can even freeze individual coins from the coins tab if you want (bear in mind that this will also freeze the address as well so that Electrum does not use it for sending transactions).

[hosemary]

You can even freeze individual coins from the coins tab if you want (bear in mind that this will also freeze the address as well so that Electrum does not use it for sending transactions).

Are you saying that if you freeze a coin, the address assosiated with it will be frozen too?
That's not the case, if I understood you correctly.

If there are multiple coins assosiated with the same address and you freeze one of those coins, Electrum will still use the other coins assosiated with that address.

[LoyceV]

You can even freeze individual coins from the coins tab if you want (bear in mind that this will also freeze the address as well so that Electrum does not use it for sending transactions).

Are you saying that if you freeze a coin, the address assosiated with it will be frozen too?
That's not the case, if I understood you correctly.

Correct.
In the Addresses tab, "right mouse" on "Freeze" freezes the address.
In the Coins tab, "right mouse" on "Freeze" gives a second menu to choose "Freeze Coin" or "Freeze Address". You can also do both:

[NotATether]

Are you saying that if you freeze a coin, the address assosiated with it will be frozen too?
That's not the case, if I understood you correctly.

If there are multiple coins assosiated with the same address and you freeze one of those coins, Electrum will still use the other coins assosiated with that address.

That's strange... I had experienced instances where I could not select a UTXO from an address in Coin Control (and therefore could not be used in the Pay tab) because some other UTXO inside the address was marked as frozen.

Could be some kind of bug.

[Forsyth Jones]

All doubts have been answered, I’d just like to add that Electrum’s coin_control has only one difference from Bitcoin Core:

Electrum doesn't have the tree listing mode, meaning it doesn't group coins/UTXOs from an address under itself (tree view mode) but it does allow you to freeze a specific coin or freeze all coins associated with that address until you unfreeze them, whereas in Bitcoin Core requires you to freeze/unfreeze them one by one.

As for the Electrum mobile app, I don't use it, but I hear its coin control features are quite deficient (it seems it only allows freezing coins). I think Bluewallet is a much better option, given that it is compatible with Electrum seeds.

I rarely use Electrum, I just have it installed and check it from time to time.

Btw, BitMaxz, if you paint over an address to hide it, but you leave the Output point visible in the "Coins" tab as can be seen in your screenshot above, it's fairly easy to look up your address. Either blur or hide both or none.

Output point 941724x917x3 decodes to block 941724, sequential transaction no. 917 in that block, fourth transaction output.

I still don't quite understand the "Output Point" concept or how it works.

[hosemary]

Output point 941724x917x3 decodes to block 941724, sequential transaction no. 917 in that block, fourth transaction output.

I still don't quite understand the "Output Point" concept or how it works.

I think Cricktor explained it well.
The first number is the block number, the second one is the transaction index, and the third one is the output index.

Here is the output 941724x917x3 on mempool.space:
https://mempool.space/tx/77cbae3250e7cea7194add687873da1223854e4d07d1e48c9d9d174855724ec1#vout=3

[LoyceV]

Here is the output 941724x917x3 on mempool.space:
https://mempool.space/tx/77cbae3250e7cea7194add687873da1223854e4d07d1e48c9d9d174855724ec1#vout=3

Instead of painting over addresses, I prefer to create a watch-only wallet for my screenshots. Anyone who bothers to look up the addresses will find they belong to Bitcointalk's Admins.

[nc50lc]

As for the Electrum mobile app, I don't use it, but I hear its coin control features are quite deficient (it seems it only allows freezing coins). I think Bluewallet is a much better option, given that it is compatible with Electrum seeds.

I have a good news regarding this:
The main Android Electrum developer is already attempting ways to implement full coin-control features on QML.

Relevant links:

• Reference Pull Request: github.com/spesmilo/electrum/pull/10956
• First try that isn't merged: github.com/spesmilo/electrum/pull/10732
• Recent one that's still open: github.com/spesmilo/electrum/pull/10918

[BitMaxz]

Instead of painting over addresses, I prefer to create a watch-only wallet for my screenshots. Anyone who bothers to look up the addresses will find they belong to Bitcointalk's Admins.

Such a great idea, but anything that I provided above is just a watch-only wallet that actually owns from someone else here that I randomly picked while browsing on the forum to look for an address with some balance to make a screenshot here at least to point the OP on the right path.

I don't know why Crick bothers so much. Sorry for the owners' address; I just borrowed it.

Actually, I don't know the admin's exact BTC address, but by checking the theymos profile, I saw the legendary address.

[Cricktor]

I don't know why Crick bothers so much. Sorry for the owners' address; I just borrowed it.

When I wrote my post, I didn't know that it wasn't your own wallet's address. I'm not bothered at all.

Hm, interesting, I think I would've hesitated to (ab)use someone else's published address(es) for demonstration purposes. Apparently you guys are more relaxed about it than me. I'll just put my reservations aside and this idea in my toolbox, because... why not? Made public is made public and no secret anymore.