Wallet Backup

It is important to always have a backup of the Riecoin wallet(s) in case something goes wrong, and the present guide explains how to make them.

Wallet Files Backup

One way to backup wallets is to save the Riecoin Core wallet files somewhere safe. To make such backup,

Inside the wallets folder, each Riecoin wallet has its own subfolder, which contains at least a wallet.dat file. The wallet files must never be shared to anyone else.

To restore a wallet (or just check if the backup is working), copy the subfolder back to the original wallets folder (renaming the subfolder if necessary). It should then become accessible, for example in Riecoin-Qt via File > Open Wallet. It is not necessary to stop Riecoin Core, unless the original subfolder is replaced by the backup.

Alternatively, run Riecoin-Qt and use File > Restore Wallet....

Riecoin is constantly evolving, so news or release notes should be checked once a while and every time an upgrade is made, in case the wallet format changed, to avoid ending up in a situation in which only old and no longer distributed versions of Riecoin Core can open them, or worse a situation in which it is simply no longer possible to spend the coins (there is nothing to worry about if funds are always maintained using the latest address type).

Low Level Backup

For advanced users, rather than making a backup of the files, it is possible to save the private descriptors in a text file, and import them back.

The private descriptors can for example be retrieved via the Riecoin-Qt Console using the command listdescriptors true. Its output must never be shared to anyone else. This must be done for every wallet. An example of output may be

{
  "wallet_name": "Test",
  "descriptors": [
    {
      "desc": "tr(xprv9s21ZrQH143K4ELuCd6ahz44nTXeZboDkUZAt9sY1MbLjRtVyvknH7mif15id8ofoXh796q9qnaS8V4wdA5nbHNCTYAwMos2xoTrevoy1Jm/86h/0h/0h/0/*)#jlhnqykr",
      "timestamp": 1736289373,
      "active": true,
      "internal": false,
      "range": [
        0,
        999
      ],
      "next": 0,
      "next_index": 0
    },
    {
      "desc": "tr(xprv9s21ZrQH143K4ELuCd6ahz44nTXeZboDkUZAt9sY1MbLjRtVyvknH7mif15id8ofoXh796q9qnaS8V4wdA5nbHNCTYAwMos2xoTrevoy1Jm/86h/0h/0h/1/*)#rtjja3xm",
      "timestamp": 1736289373,
      "active": true,
      "internal": true,
      "range": [
        0,
        999
      ],
      "next": 0,
      "next_index": 0
    }
  ]
}

Pay attention to the descriptors, which must include a prefix containing prv, otherwise it will not be possible to spend from the descriptor (ensure that the true argument was passed to listdescriptors).

The descriptors can then be restored via the importdescriptors '<descriptors>' command, by copy-pasting the text between the brackets [] (included) at the <descriptors> place.

Riecoin is constantly evolving, so news or release notes should be checked once a while and every time an upgrade is made, in case the descriptor format changed, to avoid ending up in a situation in which only old and no longer distributed versions of Riecoin Core can open them, or worse a situation in which it is simply no longer possible to spend the coins (there is nothing to worry about if funds are always maintained using the latest address type).