<p>Yes, it is completely safe to exclude the <code>blocks</code> directory from your backup process.</p>

<p>In the event that you lose all your files and need to restore from backup, Bitcoin will download all missing blocks. This may take some time, but there is no information in that directory that is unique to you.</p>

CC BY-SA 3.0
2015-07-01T21:59:53.270Z
Huh, looks like Bitcoin-QT is really picky, removing this directory or renaming and relaunching makes it crash. And restoring it still crashes too! At least I can remove the whole ``Bitcoin`` directory and copy the wallet, shame I have to redownload now everything!
Grzegorz Adam Hankiewicz
CC BY-SA 3.0
2015-07-01T22:01:08.863Z
@GrzegorzAdamHankiewicz: If you are testing this, then there's one other thing you have to delete in order to force the client to start up without crashing. Unfortunately I don't remember what it is right now and I'm not in a position to check.
Greg Hewgill
CC BY-SA 3.0
2015-07-02T01:17:55.533Z
You can move the directory just fine, but if you move it while the client is running you will end up corrupting the database.
Claris
CC BY-SA 3.0
2015-07-01T21:38:21.030Z
2015-07-01T21:38:21.030Z
Greg Hewgill
<p>After installing <a href="https://bitcoin.org/" rel="nofollow">Bitcoin-QT</a> I have over 40GB of files in the <code>~/Library/Application Support/Bitcoin</code>. It seems that the most important file there is <code>wallet.dat</code>. Does it mean that I can exclude from time machine backups the <code>~/Library/Application Support/Bitcoin/blocks</code> subdirectory to reduce the backup footprint? Will the bitcoin client download again those files in case of backup restoration without this subdirectory?</p>

<backup><bitcoin-qt-setup>
Can I ignore the blocks directory for time machine backups on OSX?
Grzegorz Adam Hankiewicz
# Can I ignore the blocks directory for time machine backups on OSX?

(Asked by: username_0 on 2015-07-01)

After installing [Bitcoin-QT](https://bitcoin.org/) I have over 40GB of files in the `~/Library/Application Support/Bitcoin`. It seems that the most important file there is `wallet.dat`. Does it mean that I can exclude from time machine backups the `~/Library/Application Support/Bitcoin/blocks` subdirectory to reduce the backup footprint? Will the bitcoin client download again those files in case of backup restoration without this subdirectory?

**Tags:** backup, bitcoin-qt-setup


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## 1 answers

### Answer by username_1 on 2015-07-01. Score: 3 | Accepted answer

Yes, it is completely safe to exclude the `blocks` directory from your backup process.

In the event that you lose all your files and need to restore from backup, Bitcoin will download all missing blocks. This may take some time, but there is no information in that directory that is unique to you.

> **Comments:**
> **username_0**: Huh, looks like Bitcoin-QT is really picky, removing this directory or renaming and relaunching makes it crash. And restoring it still crashes too! At least I can remove the whole ``Bitcoin`` directory and copy the wallet, shame I have to redownload now everything!  
> **username_1**: @username_0: If you are testing this, then there's one other thing you have to delete in order to force the client to start up without crashing. Unfortunately I don't remember what it is right now and I'm not in a position to check.  
> **username_2**: You can move the directory just fine, but if you move it while the client is running you will end up corrupting the database.  

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