Re: Pywallet: manage your wallets/addresses/keys/tx's

On the command line, use the importprivkey command.

EDIT: ~~Using this utility? or the bitcoind utility? bitcoind --help doesn't show any options for importing a private key.~~

I'm not 100% prepared to use a 3rd party utility unless/until someone confirms it works with the latest official bitcoind client and an unencrypted wallet.

In the standard client. Don't use --help, just use help. --help means you are asking about startup parameters. help means that you are asking about RPC calls / daemon commands.

It really is just

Code:

bitcoind importprivkey

but you may need to play with quotes and escapes, depending on your system. The WIF key is the one labelled Privkey: in vanitygen's output, it starts with a 5.

Thanks for the response/clarification.

I'm on Win7 64, but "bitcoind help" gives me:
C:\Program Files (x86)\Bitcoin\daemon>bitcoind help
error: You must set rpcpassword= in the configuration file:
C:\PATHTOMYBITCOIND_INSTALL\bitcoin.conf
If the file does not exist, create it with owner-readable-only file permissions.

So I went and created it - and it complains the server isn't running. Do I need to be running my own bitcoind instance Instead of / in addition to the -qt GUI??

"Bitcoin-qt.exe help" = does nothing other than start the windows gui.

"bitcoind-qt.exe --help" gives pops up a window full of options that you can't resize and that scrolls off the bottom of my screen (1680x1050).

Ideally I have 4 different Vanity addresses, and I'd like to import/setup a separate wallet for each one. - One for personal use, one for Dev, one for a friend, and one for the office.

If I'm running the bitcoind server - am I able to specify which wallet to use on startup or can I do that dynamically?

Sorry if this belongs over in the N00b section.

bitcoind.exe is a command line only client. If you double click it, it will start the "server" if you have the .conf file setup. Then to run commands against it you just open a command window and type

Code:

"C:\Program Files (x86)\Bitcoin\daemon\bitcoind.exe" getinfo

or whatever command you want to run. To stop the CLI server you just issue the stop command. Do not just close the bitcoind.exe window that pops up when you double click it as then it won't do a clean shutdown. Now you can run the GUI bitcoin-qt.exe in server mode so bitcoind.exe will respond to CLI input by having the .conf file configured and running

Code:

"C:\Program Files (x86)\Bitcoin\bitcoin-qt.exe" -server

Then you still run any commands against bitcoind.exe, but you get to have the GUI running as well.

As far as importing priv keys just run

Code:

C:\Users\User>"C:\Program Files (x86)\Bitcoin\daemon\bitcoind.exe" importprivkey 5abajabsuperseckey

and after about 20-60 seconds it should import it to the client.