Backing up your desktop wallet

[Keith]

Do this right away, get familiar with it, save those private keys for each wallet address somewhere safe in case your computer crashes, gets lost, etc.  In a situation like that, if you don't have those private keys, your coins are lost forever and no one can help you recover that wallet.

ALERT: Never share your private keys with anyone else because then they will have permanent access to the coins in the wallet address attached to those keys.

Make sure you save the private keys somewhere safe that you trust and will remember (preferably more than one place): in the cloud, on a USB drive, printed paper, lockbox, etc.

Backing up your Private Keys - Always do this!
Make sure you backup the private key for each wallet address you have in your desktop. Do these steps every time you create a new wallet address you're going to use!  Here's how you do that:

1. You have to do this for every wallet address you create. You find the address by going to your desktop wallet, click on Receive on the left, and then click on My Addresses on the right and you should see multiple wallet addresses.  Those are your public addresses. Get the private key for each one by doing the steps noted below.
2. Unlock your wallet
3. Go to settings > debug> console
4. Type dumpprivkey followed by your public wallet address, so it looks like this: dumpprivkey GU12345678
5. In the console window, copy the result line and save it somewhere safe (It's a good practice to copy the wallet address and the private key, store them somewhere together, and note that the private key will start with the number 7).

 
Backing up your Wallet File - A good thing to do!
Create an entire wallet backup file by doing this

1. Unlock your wallet
2. Go to settings> Wallet
3. 3) Under the Backup Wallet heading, click on the words "Select Folder"
4. Choose a location to save your wallet backup file, type a name for your file, and click save

I actually do both options just to be extra safe.  Again, you need to do this every time you create a new wallet address in your desktop wallet!

[Sigma25]

Excellent PSA.  Your wallet, your keys, your responsibility.  Wallets and change wallets are critical to protect.  Document, document, document.

[Mimi HTSFVIP]

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