Backing up my wallets just by using their wallet.dat files

[Lethn]

So I have a fairly good understanding of how to backup my wallet and everything and If I'm too nervous about it I suppose I could just put any coins I have onto an exchange since it's only a day like I've been planning but I just wanted to double check things on here to make sure I don't make some huge fuck up. Since I should be getting a new computer I'm going to save my wallet.dat files, put them in a folder on a seperate hard drive and I will also be exporting my Tixati configuration file and firefox profile so I don't have to go around finding everything again.

Unless I've drastically missed something that should all work fine right? After I install everything I just load up the files and everything should be back? I don't care about games and stuff because I'll just re-install them and it'll be fine and I know for certain any other work operates standalone anyway, I did experiment with a wallet.dat file on an altcoin once and it worked normally after I re-installed the wallet, I just want to double check things.

[shorena]

Yes, for bitcoin core just copy the wallet.dat and place it in the correct folder after you installed bitcoin core on the new machine.

[Lethn]

Oh good thanks, looks like I've thought everything through correctly, nervous as hell about getting it wrong because they're all worth something now it will transfer all my addresses too won't it?

[shorena]

Oh good thanks, looks like I've thought everything through correctly, nervous as hell about getting it wrong because they're all worth something now it will transfer all my addresses too won't it?

Yes, it also has all the labels to the addresses as well as a history of your TX. It will look a bit strange durring the sync process, but once the client is fully synced its like it was before.

[elasticband]

Yes, for bitcoin core just copy the wallet.dat and place it in the correct folder after you installed bitcoin core on the new machine.

same for electrum.

[Lethn]

That's comforting to know, guess I'll be backing everything up tomorrow then, thanks guys.

[Abdussamad]

For bitcoin core you should also copy the wallet folder that contains the blockchain data. Otherwise you will have to download the whole thing again and it can take days.

Also understand that bitcoin core wallet.dat backups are only good for a hundred outgoing transactions so you will have to make fresh backups regularly if you intend to restore from them in the future.