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I used to run bitcoin on Ubuntu and I have a wallet with 1 coin in it.
I took a backup of my ~/.bitcoin directory which includes a wallet.dat file.
Now I'm running on a mac, using the bitcoint-qt client.
How do I get back the money from that wallet?
Can I just copy it over the existing wallet that the mac client generated?
Is there a way to run a command line client and point to my wallet then transfer coins from it to the new wallet?
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I got it to work by simply copying the file over.
An important point to notice if you intend to follow this suggestion:
My mac wallet had 0 coins
If your mac wallet has coins, then don't follow this solution.
First I shut down the bitcoin-qt client. Not sure if this step is necessary but I think it's safer.
Then I copied the wallet.dat file over to
~/Library/Application Support/Bitcoin/wallet.dat
Then start the bitcoint-qt client again. It might take a bit longer to startup than usual. Don't panic and let it take its time.
Then you will see your coins in the client!
I'm on Linux, I exported the encrypted wallet.dat from Windows but I can't just overwrite it with the one Windows generated. it simply crashes with "Runaway exception, can't open wallet.dat, error 22" – usr-local-ΕΨΗΕΛΩΝ – 2013-04-11T08:35:27.330
That is correct. You overwrite your wallet on the Mac, but like you mentioned, it had 0 coins. Never hurts to make a backup copy first before overwriting if you've ever used the walet. – Stephen Gornick – 2012-08-27T00:08:54.560
As far as shutting down the client before copying the wallet, that is correct. You never want to copy data while an application that accesses it is open. – Stephen Gornick – 2012-08-27T00:09:49.003
so if anyone somehow got hold of my "wallet.dat", he/she can just copy the file over to his system and, now he/she has all my coins ? – Ali – 2019-04-02T09:26:58.890
1I'm wondering why you can't just send the coins from your original wallet to your new one? – T9b – 2013-06-09T09:32:12.657
@T9b yea that's a good point. I have no idea why I didn't do that back then! I can't remember if there was some specific reason or if I simply did not think of it – hasen – 2013-06-15T06:32:11.130