Making a backup of a crypto local wallet.dat file - A How To Guide

I have written many short guides for basic information to do with Crypto, specifically aimed at those who are less tech-savy and/or simply do not know where to look for certain information.

This guide is how to secure an alt-coin wallet with a password/passphrase and how to then make a back-up of the wallet.dat file for safe keeping in another location, such as a USB drive or a secure cloud server etc.

This guide is based on Windows OS;

Encrypting the wallet:

1 - Open your Wallet and wait for the wallet to be in sync

2 - At the top of the wallet page click 'Settings'

3 - Click 'Encrypt Wallet'

4 - Enter your desired password

Note: Your password can be anything you like, but remember it is cAsE SenSitiVe.
I would highly suggest using a unique password (i.e. not one you use elsewhere) but it needs to be memorable (at least to you), if you lose or forget your password, your wallet cannot be unlocked and coins will be stuck in the wallet until you unlock it, there is no "safe guard".

5 - Repeat the password a second time - This is to ensure you did not make any mistakes when entering it the first time.

6 - Press 'OK'

Your wallet will now close itself, this is setting your password.

7 - Re-open your wallet and you can continue with the next step to make a secure backup of your wallet.dat file.

Making a backup of your wallet.dat file

Your wallet.dat file is really your wallet address. Your wallet will sync with the blockchain and when in sync your wallet will have your coins in your wallet. It is essential to make a backup of your wallet.dat file because in the event of a hardware failure or theft of your computer your wallet could be restored from a secure backup. No backup means no wallet which means no way to recover your coins.

1 - At the top of the wallet press 'File'

2 - Press 'Backup Wallet'

Note: You will now be prompted to chose a location for your wallet.dat backup file to be saved and need to choose what to call it.

3 - Find the location in which you wish to save your wallet backup - I suggest the desktop as it is easy to find and we do not intend to keep the backup on the local machine anyway.

4 - Name your wallet backup - I suggest calling it something along the lines of 'CoinName - Backup.dat

5 - Press 'Save'

You now have a backup of your coins wallet.dat file - named with your desired name. If you followed the "Encrypting the Wallet" steps above, your wallet will also be locked with the password that you set, so even if you were to lose your backup file (for instance if you put it on a USB drive and said drive is lost) your coins will be safe (at least as safe as your password is strong, if you used something like 0000 or 123456789 or qwerty then its not that secure).

I would now suggest moving your 'CoinName - Backup.dat' file to a secure location, such as a USB drive and putting that somewhere safe, i.e. a safe or safe-box, bury it in your back garden, stuff it into the mattress (less lumpy than those $'s you keep in there) or, like me, you could double-secure the file and put it in your cloud.

By "double-secure" the file, I mean you could put the backup.dat file into another digitally passworded file, such as a rar or zip file, with a password set on the rar/zip file - Then put that file into a secure (passworded) cloud storage.

If you found this guide, or my writing style to be helpful/easy to understand, you might be interested in my eBook "Bitcoin, Digital Money Explained" - You can purchase the book at various websites around the internet (search David Board Bitcoin on Google and you'll find links to Amazon.com, Amazon.co.uk, Gumroad, Smashwords or if you wish to purchase with Crypto you can look at Noobie.io which is a "Marketplace for virtual currency".

I've also posted the first part of my book on Steemit so you can make sure you like my writing before you commit to actually purchasing anything.