<p>You don't need to import the keys to see if they have a balance or not. Just copy the content of "addr" and use a Bitcoin blockchain explorer such as <a href="https://blockchain.info/" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https://blockchain.info/</a> to check if there is any BTC on the address.</p>

<p>And i guess you could just import the wallet.dat on Bitcoin Core directly if there is any BTC on any of your addresses.</p>

CC BY-SA 3.0
2017-07-04T20:00:37.073Z
Thanks for your reply, but there are hundreds of these in there. Doing it by hand one by one would not be very pleasant. I just installed Bitcoin Core, and its currently downloading the chain. Is there a quick way to import the wallet file once it's done?
enlightenedOne
CC BY-SA 3.0
2017-07-04T21:17:09.357Z
You can check here : https://bitcoin.stackexchange.com/questions/10974/import-wallet-dat-into-a-new-bitcoin-qt-client
Seccour
CC BY-SA 3.0
2017-07-04T19:02:49.507Z
2017-07-04T19:02:49.507Z
Seccour
<p>recently I found a very old wallet.dat file back from 2011 (I did some mining back then). I was able to run pywallet to export the keys into JSON file, this file includes private keys and all, so i assume it was not encrypted. The structure is as follows, there are bunch of these.</p>

<pre><code>    {
        "addr": "", 
        "compressed": false, 
        "hexsec": "", 
        "private": "", 
        "pubkey": "", 
        "reserve": 1, 
        "sec": "", 
        "secret": ""
    }, 
</code></pre>

<p>The question is - what do I do with this now? I want to check if there any coins that I have mined but i have no idea what the next step is.</p>

<p>I have tried copying the value of "private" into Bitcoin Core's console with "importprivkey" but i get "Invalid private key encoding (code -5)"</p>

<p>Thanks for your help!</p>

<bitcoin-core><private-key><wallet.dat>
Help with very old wallet.dat file and keys, next steps?
enlightenedOne
# Help with very old wallet.dat file and keys, next steps?

(Asked by: username_0 on 2017-07-04)

recently I found a very old wallet.dat file back from 2011 (I did some mining back then). I was able to run pywallet to export the keys into JSON file, this file includes private keys and all, so i assume it was not encrypted. The structure is as follows, there are bunch of these.

```
    {
        "addr": "", 
        "compressed": false, 
        "hexsec": "", 
        "private": "", 
        "pubkey": "", 
        "reserve": 1, 
        "sec": "", 
        "secret": ""
    }, 

```

The question is - what do I do with this now? I want to check if there any coins that I have mined but i have no idea what the next step is.

I have tried copying the value of "private" into Bitcoin Core's console with "importprivkey" but i get "Invalid private key encoding (code -5)"

Thanks for your help!

**Tags:** bitcoin-core, private-key, wallet.dat


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## 1 answers

### Answer by username_1 on 2017-07-04. Score: 1

You don't need to import the keys to see if they have a balance or not. Just copy the content of "addr" and use a Bitcoin blockchain explorer such as <https://blockchain.info/> to check if there is any BTC on the address.

And i guess you could just import the wallet.dat on Bitcoin Core directly if there is any BTC on any of your addresses.

> **Comments:**
> **username_0**: Thanks for your reply, but there are hundreds of these in there. Doing it by hand one by one would not be very pleasant. I just installed Bitcoin Core, and its currently downloading the chain. Is there a quick way to import the wallet file once it's done?  
> **username_1**: You can check here : https://bitcoin.stackexchange.com/questions/10974/import-wallet-dat-into-a-new-bitcoin-qt-client  

---

