Data directories

Wallet data is stored in what is called the ElectrumSV data directory. When the application starts up, it looks for the data directory in an expected location, and creates it if it does not already exist.

Standard locations

Unless the user overrides the default behaviour, the data directory will be on a standard location.

On Linux and MacOS, this will be what is called a hidden folder (it starts with the dot character “.”) in the user’s home directory always named .electrum-sv. This should be easy to find.

Linux / MacOS

$ ls -a ~/ | grep elec
.electrum-sv

On Windows, this will be within the user’s application data directories. We currently store most of the application data in the Roaming directory and the logs in the Local directory. As log files may become quite large in the more verbose debugging levels, these are placed where they won’t be synchronised between computers. This is a little harder to find, but by substituting your user name for “Bob” below you should be able to find it.

Windows

C:\Users\Bob>dir AppData\Roaming\Elec*
...
 Directory of C:\Users\Bob\AppData\Roaming

28/10/2022  08:54 AM    <DIR>          ElectrumSV


C:\Users\Bob>dir AppData\Local\Elec*
...
 Directory of C:\Users\Bob\AppData\Local

25/10/2022  06:47 AM    <DIR>          ElectrumSV

Custom locations

The simplest way to control where your ElectrumSV data directory is located is to use the portable download we provide, this creates and uses an electrum_sv_data data directory in the same directory as the portable build executable is located in.

It is also possible to run ElectrumSV from either the source code or our non-portable build, and to tell it where to look for and place it’s data directory. This can be done with the -D command-line parameter.

Linux / MacOS

$ ./electrum-sv -D INSTANCE1
2022-11-25 12:59:34,966:INFO:rest-server:REST API started on http://127.0.0.1:9999
...
$ ls | grep INSTANCE
INSTANCE1

Windows

C:\Data\Git\electrumsv>py electrum-sv -D INSTANCE1
2022-11-25 12:59:34,966:INFO:rest-server:REST API started on http://127.0.0.1:9999
...
C:\Data\Git\electrumsv>dir INSTANCE
...
 Directory of C:\Data\Git\electrumsv

25/11/2022  12:59 PM    <DIR>          INSTANCE1

Note

Only one instance of ElectrumSV can be run at a time. The way this is enforced is through the data directory, and as by default an application instance will use the standard location only the first instance will run and any subsequent instance will exit. However, if each subsequent instance is directed to use a custom data directory, they will run at the same time.