Data directory

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Revision as of 05:15, 30 January 2011 by Theymos (talk | contribs) (→‎Directory Contents: Info about files)
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The location where Bitcoin's data files are stored, including the wallet data file.

Default Location

Windows

Go to Start -> Run (or press WinKey+R) and run this:

explorer %APPDATA%\Bitcoin

Bitcoin's data folder will open. For most users, this is the following locations:

C:\Documents and Settings\YourUserName\Application data\Bitcoin (XP)

C:\Users\YourUserName\Appdata\Roaming\Bitcoin (Vista and 7)

"AppData" and "Application data" are hidden by default.

Linux

By default Bitcoin will put its data here:

~/.bitcoin/

You need to do a "ls -a" to see directories that start with a dot.

If that's not it, you can do a search like this:

find / -name wallet.dat -print 2>/dev/null

Mac

By default Bitcoin will put its data here:

~/Library/Application Support/Bitcoin/

Directory Contents

Subdirectories

  • database
    • Contains journaling files for the block database
  • testnet
    • Contains testnet versions of these files (if running with -testnet)

Files

  • .lock
    • BDB lock file
  • blkxxxx.dat
    • Contains concatenated raw blocks
  • blkindex.dat
    • Indexing information used with blkxxxx.dat
  • __db.xxx
    • Used by BDB
  • db.log
  • debug.log
    • Bitcoin's verbose log file. Automatically trimmed from time to time.
  • wallet.dat
    • Storage for keys, transactions, metadata, and options. Does not use BDB (?).

The data, index and log files are used by Oracle Berkeley DB, the embedded key/value data store that Bitcoin uses.

See Also