Where Does Bitcoin Core Store Wallets and Data?
Bitcoin Core keeps blocks, chainstate, and wallets in a data directory. The default paths on Windows, macOS, and Linux.
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Bitcoin Core keeps everything in its data directory: blocks, chainstate, peers.dat, bitcoin.conf, and the wallets folder. On Linux that is ~/.bitcoin. On macOS it is ~/Library/Application Support/Bitcoin. On Windows fresh installs use %LOCALAPPDATA%\Bitcoin.
Older Windows installs used %APPDATA%\Bitcoin instead. Current builds keep using the Roaming path if it already has chainstate data, for backwards compatibility. Wallets live in the wallets subfolder, one directory per named wallet.
Where Bitcoin Core stores this, by platform
~/.bitcoin
Holds blocks, chainstate, and wallets subfolder. Override per run with -datadir. Testnet data goes in testnet3 under here, not alongside mainnet.
~/Library/Application Support/Bitcoin
Finder hides ~/Library by default. Use Go, then Go to Folder to reach it. Each named wallet sits in wallets/<name> inside this directory.
%LOCALAPPDATA%\Bitcoin
Fresh installs use Local. If %APPDATA%\Bitcoin already contains chainstate from an older version, Bitcoin Core keeps using that Roaming path instead.
Frequently asked questions
how do i back up my bitcoin core wallet safely
Copy the wallet through the GUI or with the backupwallet RPC call, not by dragging wallet.dat while the node runs. A live copy can be internally inconsistent. The backupwallet call locks the wallet and writes a clean file.
how do i move the data directory
Start with -datadir=<path> or set it in bitcoin.conf. Each network gets its own subdirectory under there, so testnet and regtest data stay separate from mainnet automatically.
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