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How to import private keys

Christoph Mussenbrock edited this page Apr 27, 2016 · 2 revisions

DAO Wiki - Reliable

Paste the key into a text file, save it to disk and use the path to that file with geth account import.

For all operating systems:

In order to import a private key, you need geth, the command line client for the ethereum node. geth resides in a subfolder of the MIST Wallet. When you download the mist wallet, you'll unzip the release file to a folder with the name "Ethereum-Wallet-osx-version" (osx stands for the operating system, version is the tree digit version number). Inside the folder navigate to the subfolder resources/node/geth. In this folder there is only one file, the geth runtime.

Before running geth, the MIST Wallet should be stopped. Then run ./geth account import privekey-file.txt.

For Windows:

  • Open Notepad
  • Paste key into notepad without any extra characters or quotations
  • Save the file as nothing_special_delete_me.txt at C:\
  • Run the command, geth account import C:\nothing_special_delete_me.txt
  • After successful import, delete the file at C:\nothing_special_delete_me.txt

For Mac:

  • Open TextEdit
  • Paste key into TextEdit without any extra characters or quotations
  • Save the file as nothing_special_delete_me.txt to your Desktop
  • Open Terminal, run command:
  • geth account import ~/Desktop/nothing_special_delete_me.txt
  • After successful import, delete the file on your desktop.

For Linux:

  • Open text editor
  • Paste key into TextEdit without any extra characters or quotations
  • Save the file as nothing_special_delete_me.txt to your home directory
  • Open Terminal, run command:
  • geth account import ~/nothing_special_delete_me.txt
  • After successful import, delete the file on your desktop.

Source: Taylor Gerring, tayvano et al. via StackOverflow