Out of sync bitcoin wallet
The Electrum wallet only takes a few seconds to sync so it is easy to recover and spend your bitcoins from. Here is a download for Electrum , I will explain how to use it later in the guide.
If your bitcoin core wallet is years behind from being synced to the blockchain, you probably will not see your coins in the wallet even if they are stored at your bitcoin address. This can be very scary for new users, but rest assured your coins are safe and recoverable. The first step is to identify which bitcoin public address you need to recover coins from.
Bitcoin core automatically generates your first bitcoin address for you but you can create as many new ones as you want. Once you have your bitcoin address, use a blockchain explorer website to check the balance of the address and make sure your coins are still there. A blockchain explorer will tell you the live balance of your bitcoin address even if bitcoin core cannot display it yet. Here is my bitcoin address on Blockchain. Now that I know my bitcoins are safe and I have identified which address they are stored in, I can start the recover process.
To export your bitcoin you will need to use the debug console to dump your bitcoin private key. Once you have your bitcoin private key you can import it to electrum and spend your coins. Here is a step by step guide to exporting your private keys from bitcoin core:.
From here you can use the bitcoin core command line which has tons of complicated features. The two commands we will be using are:. When you started your bitcoin core wallet hopefully you encrypted your wallet with a password.
That is the phrase needed here. To use this command you need to copy your bitcoin public address like we did in an earlier step. If you have done it right an even longer string of numbers and letters will appear, this is the private key to unlock your bitcoin. If someone else gets your private keys they can spend your bitcoin and there is no way to recover them!
The bitcoin blockchain is over GB in size which is too large for most users to store and can still take weeks for some people to download before they can use the wallet. Many people accidentally send bitcoin to their core wallet without realizing how long it will take to sync, then decide they would like to use another wallet. This guide will help you recover your bitcoins from bitcoin core, then transfer them to a lightweight wallet that is easier to use.
For this tutorial I will be moving coins from Bitcoin Core to Electrum. The Electrum wallet only takes a few seconds to sync so it is easy to recover and spend your bitcoins from. Here is a download for Electrum , I will explain how to use it later in the guide. If your bitcoin core wallet is years behind from being synced to the blockchain, you probably will not see your coins in the wallet even if they are stored at your bitcoin address.
This can be very scary for new users, but rest assured your coins are safe and recoverable. The first step is to identify which bitcoin public address you need to recover coins from. Bitcoin core automatically generates your first bitcoin address for you but you can create as many new ones as you want. Once you have your bitcoin address, use a blockchain explorer website to check the balance of the address and make sure your coins are still there.
A blockchain explorer will tell you the live balance of your bitcoin address even if bitcoin core cannot display it yet. Here is my bitcoin address on Blockchain. Now that I know my bitcoins are safe and I have identified which address they are stored in, I can start the recover process.
To export your bitcoin you will need to use the debug console to dump your bitcoin private key. Once you have your bitcoin private key you can import it to electrum and spend your coins. Here is a step by step guide to exporting your private keys from bitcoin core:. From here you can use the bitcoin core command line which has tons of complicated features. The two commands we will be using are:. When you started your bitcoin core wallet hopefully you encrypted your wallet with a password.