Private Keys: Import vs. Sweep
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Startup times are instant because it operates in conjunction with high-performance servers that handle the most complicated parts of the Bitcoin system. Not really; the Electrum client never sends private keys to the servers. In addition, it verifies the information reported by servers, using a technique called Simple Payment Verification. Your wallet can be entirely recovered from its seed. The seed phrase created by Electrum has bits of entropy.
This means that it provides the same level of security as a Bitcoin private key of length bits. It is not possible to recover your password. However, you can restore your wallet from its seed phrase and choose a import private key bitcoin calculator password. If you lose both your password and your seed, there is no way to recover your money. This is why we ask you to save your seed phrase on paper. In general, the speed of confirmation depends on the fee you attach to your transaction; miners import private key bitcoin calculator transactions that pay the highest fees.
This feature is enabled by default in recent versions of Electrum. When you freeze an address, the funds in that address will not be used for sending bitcoins. Wallet file encryption is activated by default since version 2. It is intended to protect your privacy, but also to prevent you from requesting bitcoins on a wallet that you do not control. Yes, see Cold Storage. You should sweep them instead. If you want to import private keys and not sweep them, you need to create a special wallet that does not have a import private key bitcoin calculator.
Sweeping private keys means to send all the bitcoins they control to an existing address in your wallet. The private keys you sweep do not become a part of your wallet. Instead, all the bitcoins they control are sent to an address that has been deterministically generated from your wallet seed. Enter the private keys import private key bitcoin calculator the appropriate field. That is the destination address and it will be from your existing electrum wallet.
You can create a transaction with several outputs. In the GUI, type each address and amount on a line, separated by a comma. This might happen if you are trying to spend a large number of transaction outputs for example, if you have collected hundreds of donations from a Bitcoin faucet.
When you send Bitcoins, Electrum looks for unspent coins that are in your wallet in order to create a new transaction. Unspent coins can have different values, much like physical coins and bills. If this happens, you should consolidate your transaction inputs by sending smaller amounts of bitcoins to one of your wallet addresses; this would be the equivalent of exchanging a stack of nickels for a dollar bill.
The gap limit is the maximum number of consecutive unused addresses in your deterministic sequence of addresses. Electrum uses it in order to stop looking for addresses. Electrum will generate new addresses as you use them, until it hits the gap limit. If you need to pre-generate more import private key bitcoin calculator, you can do so by typing wallet.
This command will generate one new address. Note that the address will be shown with a red background in the address tab to indicate that it is beyond the gap limit.
The red color will remain until the gap is filled. Addresses beyond the gap limit will not automatically be recovered from the import private key bitcoin calculator.
For example, if you wanted to generate 50 addresses, you could do this:. To upgrade Electrum, just install the most recent version. The way to do this will depend on your OS. Note that your wallet files are stored separately from the software, so you can safely remove the old version of the software if your OS does not do it for you.
For this reason, it is not recommended to downgrade Electrum to an older version once you have opened your wallet file with the new version. The older version will not always be able to read the new wallet file.
Frequently Asked Questions How does Electrum work? Does Electrum trust servers? What is the seed? How secure is the seed? I have forgotten my password. What can I do? My transaction has been unconfirmed for a long time. How is the wallet encrypted? Does Electrum support cold wallets? Can I import private keys from other Bitcoin clients?
Can I sweep private keys from other Bitcoin clients? Where is my wallet file located? Can I do bulk payments with Electrum? Can Electrum create and sign raw transactions? Electrum freezes when I try to send bitcoins. What is the gap limit? How can I pre-generate new addresses? How do I upgrade Electrum? If you have made import private key bitcoin calculator transaction that is unconfirmed, you can: Wait for a long time. Eventually, your transaction will either be confirmed or cancelled.
This might take several days. Increase the transaction fee. A window will popup import private key bitcoin calculator the unsigned transaction. A CPFP is a new transaction that pays a high fee in order to compensate for the small fee of its parent transaction.
It can be done by the recipient of import private key bitcoin calculator funds, or by the sender, if the transaction has a change output.
The private keys are decrypted only briefly, when you need to sign a transaction; for this you need to enter your password. In addition, your wallet file may be encrypted on disk. Note that the wallet information will remain unencrypted in the memory of your computer for the duration of your session. If a wallet is encrypted, then its password will be required in order to import private key bitcoin calculator it. Note that the password will not be kept in memory; Electrum does not need it in order to save the import private key bitcoin calculator on disk, because it uses asymmetric encryption ECIES.
You will need to back up this wallet, because it cannot be recovered from a seed. Amounts are in the current unit set in the client. The total is shown in the GUI. For example, if you wanted to generate 50 addresses, you could do this: Some Electrum upgrades will modify the format of your wallet files.
The following issues should be considered when upgrading Electrum 1. Please allow it time to complete, and expect it to take a little longer than usual for Electrum to be ready.
The contents of your wallet file will be replaced with an Electrum 2 wallet. This means Electrum 1. This is expected behavior. Restart Electrum 2 after the upgrade is complete and your addresses will be available. Offline copies of Electrum will not show the addresses at all because it cannot synchronize with the network. You can force an import private key bitcoin calculator generation of a few addresses by typing the following into the Console: Read the Docs v:
