Multibit bitcoin address format

This is encrypted with your wallet password. You can use these to recover the essentials of your wallet by importing one of these files into a new wallet. This is the rolling wallet backup file. Every time the wallet writes to disk, the existing wallet is kept as a backup. The main purpose of this file is to recover from any sudden loss of power that prevents a clean wallet save. These are two more directories where backups are made of your wallets.

One stores backups for encrypted wallets, the other for unencrypted wallets. Your wallet is backed up to these directories when you open a wallet, add or change the password, add a receiving address or import private keys. When you add a password to a wallet all the unencrypted wallet backups are encrypted with the password you have chosen.

You can open these files as normal using the 'File Open Wallet' menu option. When you do you will be asked for the wallet password to decrypt the wallet. If when MultiBit Classic opens your main wallet file it is not successful it will automatically use the most recent backup files to try to recover your wallet. Each wallet has a number of private keys one for each address.

You can back up your private keys for a MultiBit Classic wallet into a text file called a 'private key export file'. You can password protect this text file to prevent other people reading this data.

Below is an example of a private key export file containing demonstration private keys. You typically use Notepad or similar when working with this file. The key shown in bold begins with either "L" or "K". The date is there to allow import software to know when the key was created to avoid looking further back in history than is necessary. Don't change the date to be more recent as doing so will very likely cause a failed import and an incorrect balance. Below is an example of a password protected private key export file containing demonstration private keys.

The content is encrypted AES, password-based key derivation so can only be decrypted by special software and the provision of a password.

The MultiBit Classic wiki provides detailed technical information about the file format. If you are intending to store exported keys for a very long time and are concerned about code existing to open them far in the future then we recommend the following:.

Back to help contents Exporting private keys Private keys are long strings of letters and numbers that are literally the key to spending your bitcoin. How to export the private keys in a wallet In the 'Wallets' side panel choose the wallet you want to export the private keys for. Select the menu option 'Tools Export Private Keys'. The 'Export Private Keys' screen appears. By default, the private keys file is called the same as your wallet file, only with an extension 'key' rather than wallet.